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Review

Review

Bait and Swiss

by Jeff Ayers

Cozy mysteries have a template of sorts. They are usually set in a small town, and often set in a small business with a friendly, plucky, sleuthy heroine. Trouble, sometimes from the past, drops into the mix to spoil the perfection. Bait and Swiss is a fine example of the genre, with all the proper elements in place from chapter one. Willa and her incredibly simpatico team from her cheese shop, Curds & Whey, preparing for their second anniversary celebration, pause to attend the grand opening of a neighboring cake shop. Surprisingly, the cake shop includes a chocolatier run by Willa’s ex-fiancé and best friend from 10 years ago. In the chaos of the opening, Willa delivers samples of the chocolates to the newspaper editor, a reporter is poisoned, and the lovely town is in a panic. Willa’s relationship with the hunky local detective is in danger, but she sleuths on, partnering in a somewhat slapstick style with the editor. Food sales are down all over the town as the population fears poison from all quarters, but friendships hold firm and instincts are strong though the who-done-it is a surprise. The recipes at the end underscore the power of cheese. Fun all around from Moss (Cheddar Off Dead, 2022).

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Review

Shudder Pulp

by Henrietta Thornton

Arranging an exhibit “Inspired by Shudder Pulp dime magazines and the legend of our very own lake monster” promises to be a fun project for artist Charley Scott, curator of her small-town Canada art gallery. Local lore about the Nessie-like monster should be enough to draw the curious, but it makes one local, Laura Bouchard, very upset. Laura shows up at the gallery angry and dishevelled, with two things she’s adamant about. First, she was just attacked by the lake monster. Second, Charley had better not go ahead with this exhibit. When Laura is later found dead of “dry drowning,” or dying of water inhalation hours after the fact, Charley sets to work getting to the bottom of the myth and what really happened to Laura. Cozy fans will enjoy the small-town tale that’s complete with eccentric locals, a chocolate shop that offers a worrying subplot, and Charley’s steadfast dog. Darker elements are added: Laura was not well liked in the town, for example, and elements of witchcraft creep in, making this a tale both for cozy fans and for those who like a more sinister mystery. This is the second in the series, and readers will want to go back to the first installment, Cover Art.

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Review

The Understudy

by Willy Williams

It’s loathing at first sight when trained opera singer Kit (stage name Katerina) Margolis meets her understudy, the sexually alluring Yolanda Archambeau, on the first day of rehearsals for Barbarella, a new opera based on the 1968 film. Kit, struggling to prove she is right for the titular role, her first leading part, is taken aback when her director introduces Yolanda to the cast, something not done until later in the rehearsal process. “I felt a flash of irritation, uncharitable yet valid. She didn’t need to be there. She shouldn’t be there.” Kit’s unease rises when Yolanda yawns during Kit’s big aria and later confesses her operatic ambitions, despite her lack of training. Regarding underhanded scheming, Eve Harrington (of the film All About Eve) has nothing on the ruthless Yolanda, whose weapons against Kit include poisoned tea and dead rats. But before her plotting can escalate to a deadlier level, Yolanda is fatally stabbed in her apartment. Kit, who briefly falls under suspicion because of a violent incident in her past, turns sleuth to uncover her late rival’s dark secrets and identify her killer. Offering an entertaining look at the backstage world of New York City opera, Richter’s second novel (after The Divide) skillfully mixes the tropes of a psychological thriller with the conventions of an amateur sleuth mystery. Especially compelling is Kit’s growing self-confidence as a singer and a woman as she pursues the truth.

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Review

Nobody’s Fool

by Jeff Ayers

Coben (Think Twice) brings back former Detective Sami Kierce from Fool Me Once (the book and the NetFlix series) as his past crashes into his simple life. Sami works as a private investigator, doing jobs that embarrass him. He teaches a true-crime class at night school and lives with his wife and year-old son. Sami might want answers from past events in his life, but thinks he will never learn the truth until a woman he recognizes arrives in his class. When Sami graduated from college, he met Anna on a trip to Spain, and for days their lives were bliss until she ended up dead. But the woman Sami sees in his class is Anna, and Sami stumbles into a larger mystery that seems unrelated to his time overseas. To add to the investigator’s increasing stress, the person responsible for killing his partner when he worked in law enforcement is released from prison and asks Sami to reinvestigate the case to prove his innocence. Then Sami’s wife, Molly, thinks she is being stalked, and the lurid texts proving she’s right begin popping up on Sami’s phone. Coben juggles several complex stories, each one of which would be compelling by itself but that together create a page-turning experience that will leave fans and newcomers to Coben enthralled. The twists are shocking, and Sami; his wife, Molly; and the supporting cast are so much fun. Coben would be foolish not to bring them back for another story.

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Review

6:40 to Montreal

by Brian Kenney

Kudos to Jurczyk (The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, That Night in the Library) for providing a closed circle mystery that avoids the tropes of the subgenre while still offering some charming nods to closed trains of the past. Here, bestselling author Agatha (albeit suffering a bit from writer’s block) is sent off by her husband on a roundtrip from Toronto to Montreal for the sole purpose of finishing her new novel. With a first class ticket in hand, and only a few residents in her car, Agatha is slightly optimistic, imagining the train as a writers’ retreat and with the hope of turning out a few pages. But then she discovers a woman lurking about the train—someone, it turns out, whom she knows all too well—who believes that Agatha stole her success. As the snow thickens, the train slides to a halt somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, and then the passengers discover the horrifying news: one of their own has died. It’s brilliant how much Jurczyk packs into the book, moving back and forth between the present and Agatha’s personal history, while always sustaining a steady pace. But by the time the 6:40 makes it to the Montreal area hours later, it’s pure carnage.

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Review

The Butterfly Trap

by Henrietta Thornton

On the surface this is a he-said, she-said crime tale, but there’s much more going on in this darker departure from Simon’s previous work. It’s a close examination of what happens when one partner is completely smitten—the reader will be waiting for the yearning to tip over into obsessive stalking—and the other not only believes themselves not right for this love, but unworthy overall. The partners are Greg and Anya, Greg a research scientist who later enters a medical residency program and Anya a painter who hasn’t yet made it in Boston’s cutthroat art scene. The hippy veneer on vicious creative-world competition is perfectly portrayed here, as is Anya’s pushy mom, who holds her riches over her broke daughter’s head while practically mandating an arranged marriage to Greg, MD. On the sidelines are friends of the couple who become involved in a crime that’s almost an afterthought to the relationship struggles but that serves to tie up the tense alternating narratives in a shocking way. Simon’s fans will appreciate this swerve; it’s also a must for readers who enjoyed the dueling male and female narrators in Araminta Hall’s One of the Good Guys.

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Review

Kill Your Darlings

by Brian Kenney

Here are two people I certainly will never invite to Thanksgiving. Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over 25 years. Academics, they’ve long been settled in Updike territory along the North Shore of Boston with a cat and a nearly full-grown kid. She’s barely published as a poet while he is an English professor and full-on drunkard. The two might seem a bit dull were it not for how sinister we slowly come to realize they actually are. Swanson (The Kind Worth Saving, Nine Lives) gradually unveils their marriage by going backwards, all the way back to the tragic incident the two plotted and committed in their early twenties. But years of secrecy have taken their toll, and not everyone is willing to keep up the original bargain. Swanson can always be trusted to deliver novels that are rich in intellectual suspense and provide a narrative that is refreshingly new. Here he delivers on both.

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Review

A Case of Mice and Murder

by Brian Kenney

Attention anglophiles, lovers of dazzling historical fiction, and fans of a good draught of droll humor. This book is for you. Set in the Inner Temple, the heart of legal London for centuries, with its own degree of independence (not unlike the Vatican), the novel features Gabriel Ward KC, a brilliant legal mind who moves each day at the same measured pace between his chambers, which are crammed with books on nearly all topics; his office; and the dining hall. But on May 21, 1901, he emerges from his room only to discover a body on his doorstep. In fact, Ward is quick to identify it as the corpse of the Lord Chief Justice, who now has a Temple carving knife in his chest. But what is even more shocking isn’t that he is clad in evening wear, but that his feet are bare. How delicious is this plot? Appointed by the Temple’s Treasurer to investigate the murderer, Ward is paired with the eager and charming young Constable Wright, whose street knowledge turns out to be quite an asset, gaining Ward’s respect. The investigation drags the pair from the upper classes to the homeless, with an entirely separate court case—in children’s publishing, no less—providing some entertainment of its own. Quite simply, this is one of the very best debuts I’ve read in a long time; it’s sure to delight the Osman and Thorogood crews and readers of Sarah Caldwell’s legal murder mysteries as well.

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Review

Death in the Dressing Room

by Brian Kenney

One of the great pleasures of reading any of Simon Brett’s (A Messy Murder, Death and the Decorator) four series is that you can just pick a volume and get going. No need to worry about which book comes first. Brett’s a strong enough writer that he knows to provide just a bit of earlier information, but never so much as to overload the reader with backstory. Death in the Dressing Room is in the Fethering series, which means that readers will meet (or be reintroduced to) Carole and Jude. The former is an uptight, former Home Office type now retired, and Jude is a professional “healer” and every bit the former hippie. The two would never have hit it off if they weren’t neighbors in the lovely town of Fethering. In this story, the women are investigating the murder of one of the leading stars, Drake Purslow, whose body was found in the theater. While she’s no friend of actors, it’s nevertheless Carole who becomes a volunteer at the theater, if only to unearth the most salient facts about Drake and the whole crew. Fun, fast, and totally credible.

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Review

A Dead Draw

by Jeff Ayers

An interrogation with suspect Erik Schmidt haunts Detective Tracy Crosswhite, and his connection to her sister’s killer brings back painful memories in Dugoni’s latest thriller. Tracy’s reaction to Schmidt triggers her PTSD, and when she makes a mistake during a training session, the detective realizes she needs to destress. When Schmidt is released on a technicality, Tracy convinces her family to spend some time in her hometown of Cedar Grove so she can step away, relax, and put Schmidt out of her mind. But Schmidt has other ideas. A thriller author can rarely take an obvious cat-and-mouse game with the established final battle setup and turn it on its head to create a tense and unexpected confrontation, but Dugoni (Beyond Reasonable Doubt, A Killing on the Hill) pulls it off. He realizes his characters are first-rate and readers will follow them anywhere, so he amps up the suspense and crafts a page-turner that will cause carpal tunnel from tight gripping of the book. This eleventh entry is one of the best in the series, and Dugoni continues to tell great stories while expanding our love of Tracy and her world. Whether Tracy’s new or a regular addition to your reading pile, sketch out some time for this.

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