Author

Brian Kenney

Review

Where the Dead Sleep

by Brian Kenney

In this second in the series, Assistant Sheriff Ben Packard is juggling two major incidents. One is the death of his mentor, Sheriff Stan Shaw, which raises the question of whether Ben should run to replace Shaw as Sheriff of Minnesota’s Sandy Lake County, several hours north of the Twin Cities and a popular vacation spot. For someone who’s lived in the county for only a year or so, Ben’s got plenty of supporters, but he isn’t sure he’s ready to give up being a detective. Plus, he’s anxious about how being gay is going to play out at the polls. The other incident is the death of Bill Sanderson, shot multiple times in his bed. Nobody loved Bill—except maybe his ex-wife, who’s the sister of his new widow—but nobody seemed to hate Bill enough to actually kill him. Not his business partner, not his gambling buddies, not his spouse. To solve Bill’s death, Ben goes even deeper into the Sandy Lake community than ever before, peeling off the many dark and gritty layers, deciphering the complex family relations, and at one point putting his own life at risk. This novel works fine as a stand-alone, but readers of the first in the series, And There He Kept Her, will appreciate seeing Ben’s development and piecing together the disquieting world of Sandy Lake.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

My Husband

by Brian Kenney

Since forever, French authors and screenwriters have been writing about heterosexual marriage and infidelity as though these were the only tales worth telling. They are not. But My Husband certainly does a smashing job of upending the traditional domestic narrative with one that is terrifically creepy, darkly obsessive, and uncomfortably humorous. The finely translated novel—a fast read, if there ever was one—is told from the wife’s perspective, a woman who’s entire being is centered on pleasing/controlling her husband. At one point, she describes herself as co-dependent, but that’s like saying the Pope is Catholic. A beautiful woman with a great wardrobe and a lovely apartment in the Paris suburbs, she pretty much ignores her two young children (“Today, I think I can say with certainty that I could survive the death of one of my children, but not of my husband.”)  The perfect life? Restricted to her home with her husband, “endless one-on-one time…Sometimes I picture myself alone on the Earth with him.” Got the picture? But the husband isn’t perfect; sometimes when they are sitting on the sofa, watching TV, he’ll be the first to stop holding hands. Infractions like these deserve punishment, usually moving or hiding his personal belongings. It’s mesmerizing, and try as one might, you can’t look away. As the book progresses, the reader’s anxiety mounts, until we reach an ending which is quite the tailspin. Hip reading groups will tear each other apart over this book.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies

by Brian Kenney

An absolute delight, wonderfully written and with enough plot to keep the reader zooming through the book then quickly asking for more. Regency London is the setting and the twin Colebrook sisters, Lady Augusta (Gus) and Lady Julia, are our amateur detectives. Unusual for women of this period, they were left with personal incomes by their late father, allowing them independence and the ability to thumb their noses at their useless younger brother. In their early forties and unmarried, the two can’t bear the injustices they see heaped on the women around them, and Gus is determined to do something. When word reaches them that a friend’s goddaughter has been locked away by her husband with the intent to kill her—as she’s unable to have children—the sisters head off to spring her from her country house. Along the way, they pair up with an old interest of Gus’s, Lord Evan Belford, back from exile in Australia—it’s a long story—and hotter than ever.  What’s unusually successful about this book is that instead of focusing on one case, the sisters take on a series, including one case in which Gus, disguised as a man, infiltrates a brothel. While their identities as detectives grow, several themes emerge, including Julia’s struggle with breast cancer, their need to surrender their home to their brother and his fiancé, and, of course, what to do with Lord Belford. The Regency era, feminism, and romance all work together to create a book that will delight many. And how about that cover?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Life and Other Love Songs

by Brian Kenney

A brilliant and moving telling of a Black American family’s struggle to survive despite traumas both old and new. It’s 1981 Detroit, and the Armstead family is celebrating Ozro’s 37th birthday. Treated to lunch by his brother, with a large celebration planned for that night, Ozro heads back to work. Except he never gets there. Ozro disappears, leaving his briefcase and suit coat in his office, abandoning his wife Deborah, his young daughter Trinity, his family and friends. Shifting between the perspectives of Ozro, Deborah, and Trinity, Gray reaches back to Orzo’s time as part of the Great Migration, traveling from the south to Detroit in the 1970s; to his early courtship with Deborah, an aspiring singer; and to Trinity growing up in a world that’s been shattered. Ozro’s disappearance is like the sun, with the other characters as moons, forever circling around it. “I wondered about him all the time because absence was not the same as death,” says Trinity. “It was worse, given all the not knowing.” But it turns out that the mystery of Ozro’s vanishing is only one in a series of traumas that extend from his childhood to his death. Beautifully executed and tremendously poignant, this book is absolutely perfect for reading groups.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Flat White Fatality

by Brian Kenney

While I love an old-fashioned cozy as much as anyone—the guest everyone loathes is found dead on the library floor, a fatal slash across a carotid artery, or perhaps a touch too much monkshood in the afternoon tea?—I especially enjoy mysteries located in the present, with settings and characters that are fresh and idiosyncratic. This Portland (OR) based series, Ground Rules, fits the bill perfectly. In the first volume, barista and total hipster Sage Caplin just opens her new coffee cart when, as luck would have it, a corpse is found dead by her wheels. In Double Shot Death, the coffee cart is at a sustainable music festival—how PDX is that?—when a body is found in the woods clutching one of her coffee mugs. In Flat White Fatality, Sage has a side gig modeling as a character for her boyfriend’s game development company, Grumpy Sasquatch Studio. But then, during a team-building event, the most annoying of the company’s coders is murdered, in Sage’s own roastery no less. When another employee is almost killed, Sage realizes she needs to step it up and find the murderer before she becomes suspect number one. Plenty of satire, lots of fascinating local detail, excellent friends and family, and an insider look at the world of special coffees.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Lost Pope

by Brian Kenney

A wonderfully constructed thriller with several narratives, ranging from the 1st century to the present, that eventually come together in the most satisfying of ways. At the outset we have a newly elected pope who has created havoc within the Church with his appointment of a nun, Elisabetta Celestino, as his secretary of state. At the same time, a strip of ancient papyrus that comes from the long-lost Gospel of Mary Magdalene is discovered in a Cairo museum; just a snippet, it still manages to contain shocking information about the role of women in the early Church. It’s stolen and sold to a powerful, conservative U.S. billionaire—and collector of early Christian writings—who wants nothing more than to suppress the content. Alternating with the present-day narratives is the story of Mary Magdalene herself as we follow her from Jerusalem to Egypt to Ancient Rome. At the book’s center is Harvard Divinity School professor Cal Donovan, the protagonist of several of Cooper’s novels, the lynch pin who connects all the narratives. Often thrillers with historical backgrounds like this get weighed down with too much information and overly elaborate plots. But readers will move through this book like a hot knife through butter. For fans of Dan Brown and Steve Berry.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Block Party

by Brian Kenney

A brilliantly structured debut—alternately witty, poignant, and terrifying—that follows a cluster of suburban Boston families through one year, from summer block party to summer block party. The drama unfolds on the well-off Alton Road, a cul-de-sac in the town of Meadowbrook. While the point of view shifts throughout, at the center are Alex Fox, former lawyer, current mediator, and full-time drinker, and her daughter, Lettie, the high-school girl who dresses all in black and is committed to saving the environment. Around them swirl two planetary systems that rarely intersect: one made up of the adult women—there’s more than a touch of Desperate Housewives with this crew, although they somehow manage to keep the peace—and the other made up of teens, who have their own sordid histories and hatreds. As for the dads, they show up only to create turmoil and threaten violence. As the year goes on, the gossip and scandals grow, from the neighbor who’s a star on OnlyFans to the high school girl with the middle-aged lover to the dad who’s hiding a secret obsession. Ultimately, the suspense is too great, and the little world of Alton Road blows up, leaving no one untouched. Readers will love this fresh, satirical take on suspense in suburbia. Perfect for fans of Fabian Nicieza.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Invitation to a Killer

by Brian Kenney

Love a good locked-room mystery? Well, here’s a book with two, sort of. Augusta Hawke, crime writer with a developing side gig as an amateur detective, has been invited to a dinner party at the home of Callie Moore, wife of one of Washington, DC’s biggest lobbyists, making Callie herself a sort of demi-goddess. Turns out Callie is eyeing Augusta to ghostwrite her memoirs; in fact, everyone at the dinner has some sort of publishing aspiration. And it’s quite the assemblage, including a congressman and his wife; a CIA couple; and Doc Burke, a famous humanitarian. Augusta may have little interest in ghostwriting, but the menu is delectable, the libations lavish—until the doctor seems to fall asleep. Except you, me, and Augusta all know he’s not sleeping. He’s dead, likely, it turns out, from his heart condition. O.K., it’s not a locked-room mystery if everyone Ubers home, but certainly it has the makings of one. Over the next several months, Augusta researches and ruminates, deciding that indeed the good Doc was murdered, likely poisoned. But how to find the murderer? Augusta decides to host a writers’ retreat, in the Shenandoah Mountain, just for the dinner guests. This crazy/fun plan—yes, it snows abundantly—provides the true locked-room experience. For all who love Augusta’s wit, insights into DC and the publishing industry, and a little bit of Agatha.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The White Lady

by Brian Kenney

Jacqueline Winspear, author of the hugely popular mystery Maisie Dobbbs series set in England during WWII, here moves into the post-war world with a new heroine. Elinor White has had a lifetime of espionage. Born in Brussels, daughters of a British mother and a Belgian father who died in the early years of the WWI, she and her older sister spent WWI in Brussels, working as trained spies, going so far as derailing German supply trains in the dead of night. By age 14, already an expert markswoman, Elinor moves with her family to England. But by the beginning of WWII, she’s back in the espionage game, although eventually a terrible injury behind enemy lines sends her back to England and a lengthy hospitalization. When the war finally ends, she moves to the country, promising to forget the past and live a life of monotony. But when the lives of a neighboring family are threatened—they too are seeking anonymity—Elinor becomes involved, facing the country’s largest crime family head on. Throughout, readers will sense that Elinor is keeping something from us, and when her secret is finally revealed it brings about a type of healing. As always, Winspear is brilliant at bringing us into the past and into the lives of women, so often left out of accounts of war efforts. Winspear fans will find much to enjoy here, as will other readers of historical fiction.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace

by Brian Kenney

Having loved Nonna Maria and the Runaway Bride, I started Carcaterra’s second in the series with some trepidation. Would it hold up to the first? But I’m happy to report that the newest Nonna book provides all the pleasures of the earlier title—and then some. If you aren’t familiar with Nonna Maria, then make it a point to remedy that. A widowed grandmother, Nonna Maria, in an oh-so-subtle way, runs the island of Ischia, just 20 miles from Naples. Through her myriad connections, which include the carabinieri, members of organized crime, the clergy, and of course family, Nonna rights many wrongs—all while cooking the most delectable meals. In this installment, Nonna Maria’s goddaughter, who works as a maid, is accused of stealing a necklace while a woman, who was once a native, returns to the island, only to be murdered. Through Nonna’s investigations, we learn more about how the island, and its economy, is changing, while the conservative social mores that are such a part of island life live on. Cozy readers will love this book both for the indomitable character of Nonna Maria and the chance to travel to this paradise in the Bay of Naples.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail