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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 Bachelorette Party

by Willy Williams

Agatha Christie’s 1939 And There Were None set the template for the island mystery with its protagonists trapped on a remote isle and stalked by an unknown killer. The arrival of cell phone technology has forced writers to up their thriller game. As with the guests in Sean Doolittle’s Device Free Weekend, the five girlfriends who arrive at Baltic Vinyasa on Isle Blind off the Swedish coast for a four-day yoga-themed bachelorette party must give up their cell phones and other digital devices to the proprietor, Irene. “I wish I wasn’t so addicted to my devices,” confesses Lena. Her sister Tessa, the bride-to-be’s best friend, has another, more secret, motive for joining the party. A true-crime podcaster whose latest episode crashed and burned in the wake of a scandal, she hopes to redeem her career by solving the mystery of the Nacka Four. A decade earlier, four young women, who had traveled to the archipelago for their annual reunion, disappeared, presumed by police to have drowned when their boat was found floating. Tessa suspects they may have been murdered on Isle Blind and is determined to find evidence. But from the moment she steps on the island, her sense of dread grows. While elements of this twisty mystery require a suspension of disbelief (the luxurious hotel is built on a rocky island too barren to support crops yet has plenty of water for hot showers), Sten (The Resting Place) excels at building the creepy horror and chilling tension. Readers who like their thrillers bloody and gory will enjoy this dark Nordic take.

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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

What He Left Behind

by Danise Hoover

Oak Hill, NC is a town where nothing much in the way of crime happens. Then, in the space of a few days, there is murder, robbery, and arson. Jacob Sawyer, someone who hasn’t been seen for 15 years, is back in town, though no one thinks he is the cause. Grace Bingham, local police detective and Jacob’s abandoned love interest from before, is under time pressure to solve the crimes without offending anyone important. Jacob’s back because his mother, beloved in the town, is dying of cancer; Calvin Dockery, an extremely wealthy local who pulls all the strings, is also dying. The current crimes harken to unexplained events of the past that caused Jacob to leave. The story moves from the present to the past and back again, gradually revealing what happened. Grace and Jacob are undeterred in their search to connect what is happening now with what happened in the past regardless of who is involved. Money is power, and power is very dangerous here, and those with it are willing to spare no one. Resolution is not easy, but very satisfying in a book with a great deal of atmosphere and local resonance.

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Review

Departure 37

by Jeff Ayers

In the middle of the night, an airline pilot receives a frantic call from his mother, begging him not to fly in the morning. He is not the only one to receive a call from their mom, all with the same request. In some cases, their mother has been dead for some time. In a tiny town in Maine, a high-school girl named Charlie follows an odd-looking weather balloon to the remains of a military crash from the 1960s, and the pilot was her great-grandfather. The landing of a mysterious aircraft at an abandoned military base ties into a top-secret project of a scientist named Marty, who discovers a unique way to hide planes from radar. Add in the escalation of a mission to drop a nuclear bomb on Cuba at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. All of these random factors convene in this engaging and baffling thriller. The storyline alternates between Marty’s scientific research during the Kennedy administration and the present, when Charlie and another student search for answers. Carson, a pseudonym for Michael Koryta, delivers a terrific blend of horror and espionage that could be frighteningly real.

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Review

Her One Regret

by Brian Kenney

Immensely powerful. Expertly written. Shocking time and time again. This novel poses the question: what should a woman do if she loves her child, but regrets being a mother? Real-estate agent Lucy Mendoza disappears, her groceries and baby abandoned in a Rhode Island supermarket parking lot. Immediately the media is on the case, as is Michelle, Lucy’s very best friend, who is certain Lucy would never abandon her child, and leads a search to exonerate Lucy. In fact, there are a number of theories about Lucy’s absence swirling about town. Cops who can’t help but compare her case to that of the several moms who disappeared over the years in a similar fashion; likely all acts of violence. And then there are the many husbands who decide that Lucy was a home-wrecker, so desperate to leave behind her family she bolted without a trace. And the secret that Michelle carries around: that Lucy regrets being a mother, so much so that she fantasizes about leaving her world behind. But Michelle knows that if information like this ever becomes public, Lucy would emerge from it persona non grata, a monster. What happened to Lucy? Freitas delivers a finale that readers will ponder time and again. A great choice for book groups

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Review

History Lessons

by Brian Kenney

A unique work of crime fiction told from the perspective of a BIPOC community within an elite, east coast university. Daphne Ouverture, an expert on French colonialism, is a new junior professor. She keeps a low-key life, focused on her research and teaching, with her circle of friends and family (but most assuredly not any of her miserable dates) providing support. Wallbrook does a great job of depicting what life is like for Black women in Harrison University, an Ivy League environment (too often invisible, too often fetishized). But when young professor Sam Taylor, the darling of the anthropology department, is murdered, Daphne’s world is blown wide open. Sam was no friend of Daphne’s, although their paths crossed more than once. It gradually becomes clear that whoever killed Sam is now pursuing Daphne, believing that she has invaluable information, and there’s no place on campus she can feel safe. The pleasures of this book are many, from watching Daphne’s development—and taking on of social-justice issues that have an impact on many of the Harrison women—to the always ready advice from her father and from the appearance of a love interest to the joy of her friendship circle. At the same time, this book can go dark fast with stalking, rape, and sexual abuse all mentioned. Much is made of Daphne’s unique skills as a detective—she’s gifted—and more Daphne can only make the world a much better place.

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Review

Making Friends Can Be Murder

by Danise Hoover

We start this complicated plot with a clever ongoing fraud scheme in which a woman assumes the same name as another with a common name and a trust fund in order to steal the money. In Minneapolis, Sarah Jones has become part of a project of a Catholic highschooler doing penance for bad behavior, bringing together a bunch of women with this same name for regular coffee and conversation, making it ripe for this fraud. To avoid confusion, each member is identified by age rather than name. Thirty is our heroine; twenty-seven the thief. Added into the mix is a freshly minted FBI agent with his own secret agenda (not nefarious) and a cloistered nun with an unexpected background. A Sarah Jones, not part of the group, is found murdered, taking the fraud investigation to a new level. We have time spent in the woods, old crimes to solve, family connections, and a spot of romance. Confused? Don’t be. The story maintains its integrity and is enjoyable to the end with an interesting set of characters poised for what could be another book in the future.

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Review

Nightshade

by Jeff Ayers

Sergeant Stilwell works for the sheriff’s office of Catalina Island, off Los Angeles, a job he was shoved into after an incident on the mainland involving his partner. Police politics and his dogged pursuit of the truth have placed him in a thankless job, but serving a warrant on a suspect in an animal-abuse case quickly turns ugly. When the murder of a young woman who waitressed at a gentlemen’s club puts him in the crosshairs of influential people, not to mention those of his former colleagues, Stilwell can either sit back and let everyone else solve things, or he can go against protocol and orders and pursue justice. Doing the right thing could jeopardize his career and future with a woman he’s fallen in love with on the island. Connelly has created a whole new cast of characters, and just like Bosch and Ballard, Stilwell and the rest are terrific. The case and the story flow nicely, and it wouldn’t be a Michael Connelly novel without a few surprises. His name on the cover guarantees a stellar read, and Nightshade is no exception and hopefully the start of a new series.

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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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