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Review

The Sunshine Man

by Brian Kenney

It’s a big day for both Bridget Keller and her old family friend Jimmy Maguire. Jimmy’s being released from notorious English prison Wandsworth, having served decades for the murder of his childhood friend Providence. And Bridget, Providence’s older sister, is on her way to the prison gate to meet Jimmy and kill him. But things aren’t quite right for the attack, so Bridget puts it off…and puts it off…while she tails Jimmy as he visits old haunts, planning to kill him at every stop. As we journey with the ill-fated pair, readers look back at Bridget and Jimmy’s childhoods. Both have been abandoned by their mothers, Bridget physically when her mother took off, Jimmy emotionally as he survives life with his alcoholic mother; “the mister,” an abusive man whom Jimmy just KNOWS isn’t his father; and his small-time-criminal brothers. Nobody expects good from a Maguire. But as readers come to know Jimmy from his friendships, efforts to escape a life of crime, and sometimes-sparkling inner thoughts, it becomes harder to view him as just a criminal. Solid twists add to the emotional uncertainty to create a thought-provoking look at intersecting tough lives and longings for love.

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Review

Just Another Dead Author

by Dodie Ownes

Swedish author Bivald gives readers another delightful twisty tale (following The Murders in Great Diddling) with well-known mystery author Berit Gardner in the lead role, along with a diverse and quirky cast of characters, most of whom are writers, agents, and publishers attending a retreat outside Lyon, France. Against the backdrop of the somewhat dilapidated yet beautiful Chateau des Livres, the envy and adoration amongst the attendees begins to merge, even as they continue to workshop “Dramatic Plot Twists” and “Portrait of a Writer on Fire.” When John Wright, headliner and bestselling author, dies in the front row during Berit’s welcoming address, nearly everyone is a suspect. A series of reveals follows, including two Mrs. Wrights, a partial manuscript, and a kitchen crush. When another particularly annoying attendee is found stabbed, the stakes are raised. With the help of sharp-eyed observers and a DCI Ahmed, a friend from England, Berit and her rep Sarah, who happens to be the daughter of John Wright’s agent, start to work out whom the murderer might be, much to the chagrin of local authority Commissaire Roche. Fans of Kemper Donovan’s Ghostwriter series will eat this up. A fun romp through the publishing industry is icing on the cake!

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Review

Two Truths and a Murder

by Brian Kenney

Phyllida Bright, Agatha Christie’s long-standing housekeeper, close friend, and—with Agatha’s permission—sometime sleuth takes on a local case involving multiple murders. Invited to a dinner party, she’s been asked to help determine whether one of the husbands is guilty of infidelity (he isn’t), but instead observes as the obnoxious Genevra Blastwick, the complete opposite of her shy sister Ethel, forces everyone into playing Two Truths and a Lie, and she herself is quick to claim as one of her truths that she once witnessed a murder. Fact or fiction? In either case, her claim garners her plenty of attention—these days, Genevra would be an influencer of some sort—but it’s not necessarily the attention she wants, as the next morning, reclusive Ethel is discovered to have been run over by an automobile while walking home from the party. Has the murderer killed the wrong sister, “offing” sweet Ethel when they meant to murder big-mouthed Genevra? Set entirely in the countryside, with the supportive Agatha in the background, this novel sees Phyllida taking on an even greater role as an amateur sleuth, with many in the community, especially the service workers, turning to her for help. Add to all this a burgeoning romance that will knock Phyllida and many readers off of their feet, and you have all the makings of one of the best cozies of the year.

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Review

Dark Sisters

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

The small Southern town of Hawthorne Springs holds a dark and twisted history of witchcraft and sin, carried through generations of the women who live there. In this historical thriller, we meet three women whose fates, spanning hundreds of years, have been bound to the magic that flows from this town. Anne Bolton is a healer in 1750 fleeing with her daughter from persecution for witchcraft, placing her faith in a powerful natural entity and encouraging others to do the same. Mary Shepard is a housewife in 1953, entertaining a sapphic affair as an escape from her monotonous life in a restrictive community. Camilla Burson is the defiant daughter of a preacher in 2007, fighting against the community and the church to discover the truth behind the sinister and mysterious disease that plagues the women of Hawthorne Springs and how it connects to the Dark Sisters, a parable of two wayward women that may be all too real. Is there truly a source of magic in this town, or are the Dark Sisters simply a story preachers share to incite fear and keep women in their place? Visit three different time periods as DeMeester addresses generational trauma, cult-like religious practices, and the collective power of women who are willing to take down the patriarchy.

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Review

A Place of Secrets

by Danise Hoover

In a quiet Ontario town, days after Christmas, Evelyn Massey, over 90 years old, is found dead in her home with a note guiding Alice, a local policewoman, to a dead body buried in the basement for more than 60 years. More bodies are found, all from the same time period, with evidence suggesting Evelyn’s long dead husband as the guilty party. He is considered saintly by his daughters and granddaughter and the family friends still living, most of whom are also in their 90s, making this no easy case to investigate. Assisting Alice’s able and interesting team is Hugh Mercer, late of the NYPD, in the area doing a sort of personal penance for his career. The local chief goes so far as to suggest letting the mystery of the dead bodies slide since it all happened long ago and everyone is so old, but the serial killer emerges in a dramatic fashion, bringing all the motives to the open, including Alice’s private demons. The weather and landscape play an integral part in this somewhat bleak story that’s best read on a sunny day.

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Review

A Murder in Paris

by Henrietta Thornton

“There will be no more diaries to fill, now.” How lonely, an emotion that echoes through this book that is sure to be on end-of-year best lists. It opens in present-day London and then flits back and forth between 1945 and present-day Paris, with an opulent city of lights hotel, the Lutetia, as the main setting. The hotel is famous for a painting in the lobby that depicts a woman in rags in one of the rooms; she was one of the many Holocaust survivors housed briefly in the hotel after returning from the horrors of the camps. In the present day, the artist’s granddaughter, memory specialist Dr. Olivia Finn, must quickly head from London to Paris when the hotel calls to say that her grandmother is in the lobby, needing help that she insists only Olivia can provide. Olivia’s grandmother says that she killed a woman at the hotel during those terrible first post-war days; she has dementia, but could her confession be true? Memory and its porousness are central to the plot here. So is the turmoil and moral ambiguity of 1945 Paris: Resistance men who fraternized with Nazis are showered with honors but their women comrades branded “whores,’” while the police work to uncover collaborators attempting to pass as camp survivors. With twists to spare, a fast-moving plot, and piercing looks at what it was like to start over after the war, this is one to get on your TBR list.

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Review

The Devil in Oxford

by Danise Hoover

Christmas in Oxford sounds like a good idea. But as might be predicted by anyone acquainted with Ruby and her housemate and employer, Mr. Owens, that is likely a false assumption. While antiquarian books are their business, the Oxford sojourn highlights Egyptian artifacts and brings Ruby back to the harsh memories of her WWI service as an ambulance driver. Her feelings for Ruan, healer and witch, must be confronted, as must her trust in old and dear friends, including Leona, her partner in ambulance duties. Circumstances require much late-night skulking involving lockpicks and a reluctant Ruan as a partner, as well as attendance (unwilling) at overblown parties.In the end, the heroes are found and the evildoers are truly evil, but as with many books in this series, reading is easier if one starts at volume one. Smuggling, murder, and cocaine are mixed within a roiling undercurrent of social and political tension in an atmosphere of scholarship. A nicely drawn period piece.

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Review

The Burning Library

by Willy Williams

Yale University’s Beinecke Library possesses the 15th-century Voynich manuscript, a codex so mysterious and untranslatable that it would stump even The Da Vinci Code’s Robert Langdon. But Macmillan (The Manor House) daringly incorporates this unique book as a possible clue to an even more cryptic ancient text in a twisty feminist thriller that features deadly secret societies, a sleuthing scholar, a Scotland Yard detective, and an action-packed quest that begins in Scotland and ends in Italy. On a remote Scottish island, Eleanor Bruton, a member of the Order of St. Katherine, or the Kats, is studying an antique piece of embroidery for clues to a valuable title, The Book of Wonders, when she is brutally murdered. Her killers work for a rival women’s group, the Larks. While the Kats seek power over men through their traditional roles as wives and mothers, the equally ruthless Larks represent feminist modern women. Caught unwittingly between the two groups is Anya Brown, a brilliant, newly minted PhD., who has been hired by the elite Institute of Medieval Manuscripts in St. Andrews to study a private collection of rare materials. In London, DC Clio Spicer suspects that the “accidental” death of her mentor might be connected to Bruton’s killing. Despite the anticlimactic conclusion, Macmillan takes readers on an exciting adventure that will please Katherine Neville and Dan Brown fans.

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Review

Cross Your Heart and Hope He Dies

by Brian Kenney

This fun-loving mystery/romcom features Juliette Winters, author, editor, and likely workaholic. The book opens with Juliette hobnobbing with the Seattle elite on a posh yacht, working the crowd in anticipation of an announcement from business titan Warren Ellingham. It seems that Warren has a) decided to publish his memoirs and b) promised Juliette exclusive rights to the book, the most exciting, salacious tell-all that Seattle has seen in years, if not decades. Except things don’t always make it to the podium as smoothly as one might like. Before he can get a few words out, Warren keels over—likely from a heart attack—and the manuscript disappears, with Juliette left holding an empty bag. It’s easy to feel sorry for Juliette, but the arrival of Charlie Hawkins, MD on the scene, does a lot to cheer things up, and the woman who asserts not to have time for romance may well have to re-examine that claim, while still looking for Warren’s manuscript. Sure to delight fans of lighter mysteries from L. M. Chilton, Mia P. Manansala, and Elle Cosimano.

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Review

A Killer Getaway

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

For the past five summers, Lily Lennox has left her successful business in Cincinnati to work as a lifeguard at elite Caribbean Island wellness resort the Riovan. But no one knows why. They also don’t know about the string of deaths attached to the Riovan that conveniently align with Lily’s annual stay. As the protagonist returns to her annual island lifestyle, she exposes the truth behind the Riovan’s problematic wellness practices and her own reasons for returning. But this year, Lily’s plans are interrupted by a mysterious journalist, Daniel Black, who is intent on chipping away at any crack in the resort. Their attraction to each other only grows as Lily resists and attempts to divert his attention away from the resort’s secrets. This summer-vacation thriller provides a witty outlook on wellness culture and exposes the harsh impacts of body-image obsession while following a female antihero along a dark path of revenge, reflection, and romance. For fans of Emily Henry’s feel-good nature and Jeneva Rose’s twisted thrills, who will be uncovering its mysteries until the very end.

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