Author

Henrietta Thornton

Review

Stillwater

by Henrietta Thornton

Luke Harris knows lots of classic rock songs, but only the first half, because, although his dad, Quin, is a great musician, the man can only concentrate on one thing for so long. Quin’s also hopeless at being a small-time criminal and is in and out of jail. That’s why when Luke’s mom died when he was a child, he had to go to a group home. Now he’s an independent and resourceful young man, studying to be an accountant and working as an aide to disabled youth. Two things crash into that mostly broke existence: he takes a job looking after Phil, a young man whose wealthy father more or less abandons his son to Luke’s care, and Gus, a mobster who forced Luke to work for him when he was younger, finds Luke and wants him back on payroll. A maybe-romance with Emma, Phil’s actress sister, complicates Luke’s struggle to get out of Gus’s clutches, a journey that ends with scary characters and threats meeting in a tense showdown. Scott invites us deep into the tangles of a coming-of-age story that’s fraught with complicated loyalties, love, and desperation. A great read for those who enjoyed T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps.

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Review

The Country Under Heaven

by Henrietta Thornton

Normally as I read a book for review, I mentally formulate the review. (Actually, at this point, even if I’m not reading for a review I do that.) But this time I couldn’t do this because this book shook me out of normal reading mode in the best way. It’s just extraordinary, combining elements that would seem to repel one another—historical fiction about the Reconstruction era, the supernatural, and a Western—but that form the most memorable story I’ve read in some time, with writing to match. The enigmatic main character here is Ovid Vesper, a cowboy who wanders the west from job to job, with his nomadic ways creating an episodic feel to the saga. He brings with him strange powers that started after he was injured at Antietam—a Civil War battle during which he believes he died and came back. He can see otherworldly beings now, and snatches of future events. At one long stop, he’s deputized by the sheriff of Lennox, Kansas, a war comrade, and mostly deals with small-town crimes but also with bandit gangs that terrorize the area. Topping them all though is the Craither, a huge, terrifying evil that appears when he needs it least, creating havoc in an era that needs none. Adding a touch of the normal is Ovid’s quaint romance with Nancy Mavornen and his helping a neighbor whose decisions make a shocking ending to this wild, wonderful story.

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Review

Death on the Island

by Henrietta Thornton

As a former first lady of Iceland, Reid has plenty to draw on when it comes to this tale of a far-too-eventful diplomatic trip to Iceland’s remote Vestmannaeyjar, or Westman islands, by a Canadian delegation that might result in the island’s main employer expanding to Canada. The visitors’ carefully managed tour brings them to Skell, a gourmet restaurant that uses local herbs in its food and in its dramatic, served-on-fire Flaming Viking cocktail, a ritual that sees one of the delegation drop dead on the floor. And that’s not even the only mysterious death in the town lately: before the big visit, the town’s mayor found his husband dead; the devastated widower insists it’s murder, but the police ruled it a death by natural causes. The Canadian ambassador’s wife, Jane, takes up an investigation of the restaurant death but is soon drawn into fast-moving undercurrents: politics in the town, diplomatic tendencies to overlook problems that won’t go away, and, as always, tensions in personal relationships, including in her own marriage. There are many threads to pull at here, plus the rich details of diplomatic and Icelandic life, add to an engrossing whodunit that offers a delicious ending twist.

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Review

Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right

by Henrietta Thornton

It’s the names that tell those new to Mosley that they’re in for something special: the main character, King’s, of course, but then there are Forthright Jorgensen, Gladstone Palmer, and Melquarth Frost. Dickens, look out. Studded with descriptions such as “like grooming a fancy doll with razor blades in her hair” and characters who resemble “a human container of stoppered rage,” Mosley’s tale of love lost and found and inner strength battling terrible odds sees his PI Joe King Oliver helping two women this time. One is his grandmother, Grandma B. She wants to see her son, King’s long-incarcerated father, one more time before she dies, which won’t be far off. Then King’s PI business sets him on the search for a woman whose husband is looking for her, only it looks like King shouldn’t tell the man her whereabouts. Our hero’s emotions as he barely contains the pain of losing his father to jail just so the man could keep his pride intact wonderfully gird this fast-moving tale of the guts it takes to stay true to tough beginnings.

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Review

Streetwhys

by Henrietta Thornton

After Scavenger and Standalone, Chambers has brought his DC PI Dickie Cornish back to have his smarts tested and his heart trampled on again. Dickie’s clean after “a mishap in college” (Howard University, no less) saw him living as an addict on the streets and in various flophouses. He’s the kind of guy who lets his cat eat mayo and crumbs off his plate, but can put a tough facade on when he has to. When a way-out-of-his-league former classmate, now Deputy Attorney General of the United States, asks him—with the threat of a murder charge from his past if he says no—to find out who’s supplying lethal drugs to the area, he’s back on the streets, tough attitude in place. Readers are in for a layered mystery here, with Dickie moving between tent cities and the Department of Justice to figure out what’s going on, and with figures from his past reappearing and adding to the puzzle and mayhem. Throughout, the Black PI’s failure to fit in his old haunts and new ones creates an atmospheric tension that’s imparted by Dickie’s inner monologue and realistic dialogue with characters of all kinds. Noir fans, look out.

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Review

The House on Buzzards Bay

by Henrietta Thornton

Murphy likes to take lawyer characters out of their geographic and emotional comfort zones, and in this, perhaps his best book yet, he makes the discomfort both sharper and more nebulous than we’re used to. The author’s (An Honest Living) main character is Jim, who’s married to Valentina; they spend the summer in a house he inherited in Buzzards Bay, on the southeastern coast of Massachusetts. Before he met Valentina, he gave his tight pack of college friends shares in the home; over the years, they’ve summered there, some regularly, others rarely seen. This summer sees the return of several regulars and of Bruce, who hasn’t shown up in years. He brings with him a darkness that creeps over the old friends and becomes especially pronounced when the residents, in a nod to the house’s origins as a home for an occult group, holds a séance. A French woman who’s an ex of one of the gang, with her languid but also guarded ways, will be memorable for her strange manner. But all the characters and even the house will stay with readers, especially those who enjoy introspective language (“there was something petty, almost squalid, in not appreciating a friend’s beauty until she was holding it there before you”) and a slight tinge of the supernatural.

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Review

Widows and Orphans

by Henrietta Thornton

Humor, up-to-the-minute political clashes, and more humor meet in this cozy-adjacent small-town mystery. Our protagonist, Canadian journalist Cat Conway, has had it with the wellness industry, especially its craven criticism of vaccines. Her series of articles on the anti-vax movement has made her a target of right-wingers, and scared advertisers could be the kiss of death for the Quill and Packet—the struggling Port Ellis newspaper Cat works for. Still, when the industry comes to town in the form of the Welcome, Goddess event, at which insufferable influencers Bree and Bliss bring their crystals, navel-gazing, and clothes in colors like oatmeal and wheat, Cat doesn’t shy from covering it. She aims to buttonhole the two about why they’re peddling harmful advice, but plans are derailed in favor of a murder investigation when one of the influencers is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. Finding out who did it brings us into the underbelly of the wellness industry, which is perfectly and hilariously lampooned here, but also invites readers into Cat’s thorny but loving relationship with her wellness-guru mother and an enjoyable will-they-won’t-they romance with her coworker Amir. While this can stand alone, readers will want to go back to series debut Bury the Lead to spend more time with this gutsy journalist.

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Review

Picking Up the Pieces

by Henrietta Thornton

The South Island Jigsaw Crew has a fun remit: to test-drive the Cedar Bay Puzzle Company’s creations before they’re approved, making sure they work and critiquing visual design. Well, that’s what they usually do, but now the Washington State group has a new, more urgent project: to figure out who really killed a local woman, so that librarian Jim Chambers, father of our determined protagonist, Katie Chambers, can be freed. This series debut sees Katie plunge deeper and deeper into danger as she becomes the target of a mysterious figure who warns her to quit the case or else, and readers will be gratified by the cozy fiction staple of friends and other locals coming to her aid. A bonus is steadfast firefighter ex-boyfriend Connor, who wants to be back in the picture and whose loyalty keeps stubborn Katie safe even as she pushes him away. Tidbits about jigsaw-puzzle creation add to the fast-moving story, and with its exciting ending, it’s a great choice for both cozy fans and readers of other mysteries, and of course puzzle lovers.

J.B. Abbott is a pseudonym for firstCLUE Contributing Editor Jeff Ayers, author of Leave No Trace and Cold Burn; and author Brian Tracey.

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Review

The Orphanage by the Lake

by Henrietta Thornton

It’s not easy being New Yorker Hazel Cho. Her parents, who are from Korea, find her private-investigation business brings shame on her family. Why can’t she be a doctor or lawyer? She lives in a small New York Chinatown apartment with a roommate who has a crush on her, and it’s not mutual. Not to mention that the rent is due and her latest client won’t pay and is turning violent. So when wealthy, commandeering Madeline Hemsley turns up looking to hire Hazel and will pay thousands now and a bonus of $100,000 if she finds Madeline’s missing goddaughter, Mia, by the end of the following week, it’s a dream come true. Well, financially it is, but definitely not professionally, as this case is cold. Madeline has hired multiple private investigators before who couldn’t find the girl, who is missing from a private orphanage—oops, children’s home. The police insist that Mia must have run away, but as Hazel investigates goings-on at the school and its wealthy benefactors, things don’t add up. Romance steals its way in when Hazel meets a dashing donor at a school benefit, and while things seem to be going her way at last, they soon turn scary. Miller brings us on a twisting path to finding the truth, one that immerses readers in both the life of a likeable, struggling young entrepreneur and the frustrations of a missing-person investigation, both to great effect.

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Review

King of Ashes

by Henrietta Thornton

A gripping family story packed with tension, violence, and secrets that’s sure to enthrall Cosby’s legions of fans. It introduces the Carruthers clan of Jefferson Run, GA. The town, known to local kids and jaded adults as Jefferson Got the Runs, used to be prosperous, but “now all we make are orphans and widows.” In a gray area in that regard is Keith Carruthers, who might or might not be widowed. His wife hasn’t been seen for years; he’s the owner of a crematory; and locals think he killed and disposed of her himself. Now that he’s been the victim of a hit-and-run and is comatose, his grown children, Roman, Dante, and Neveah, may never know what happened to their mother. But that’s the least of their worries after rich, successful Roman returns from Atlanta to see his father and tries to help Dante, who’s in trouble with ruthless local gangsters. Roman is used to more than a little white-collar sleight of hand in his financial advising business, but is quickly far out of his depth in the evil underbelly of his hometown. “We all fall short of grace, but the beauty lives in the attempt,” says Cosby (All the Sinners Bleed, The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024), neatly summing up Dante’s increasingly bloody helping hand and the family’s striving to love one another even when the world gives them every reason to give up.

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