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Review

The Frozen People

by Henrietta Thornton

In this police procedural with a huge twist, Ali Dawson works for a London police department that purports to solve cold cases. These cases are so cold they’re truly frozen, hence the department’s nickname and the book’s title. But the team’s real purpose is to send detectives back in time to solve crimes. An Italian scientist is behind the technicalities of it all, and the officers themselves have only a vague idea of how it works, but no matter. They’ve now visited the past several times, at first leaving the COVID era to go back to just before the pandemic, and then visiting past decades. But now a government minister wants to prove his ancestor innocent of a crime, a job that will send Ali back to Victorian London. Visiting Ali’s own city, but a vastly different version of it, is as fascinating for readers as it is for the sleuth, but all goes awry when she can’t get back, and her son—their relationship is a highlight of the book—is accused of murder in the present day. Griffiths provides just enough of the intricacies of time travel to keep things interesting without bogging the narrative down with physics, creating a fresh new series that will leave readers wanting more

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Review

South of Nowhere

by Jeff Ayers

Colter Shaw takes on a mission to find a missing family swept away by a flood in Deaver’s latest thriller. They don’t have much time to survive, so Colter’s efforts and utilizing his skill set come with a ticking clock. A levee near a small California town has overflowed, and that raging water is merely the beginning of a possible catastrophic event that could decimate the town if the barrier fails. Colter and his sister, Dorion, work with the police and emergency personnel to evacuate everyone before what seems to be an inevitable breach occurs. When they uncover evidence of sabotage, it becomes a race to find who and why someone would want to destroy the town and its citizens. Deaver is a master in misleadingly utilizing readers’ expectations and perceptions, so every revelation is a surprise. The ending hints at a terrific next adventure, and it can’t come soon enough. Fans of the CBS series Tracker already know Colter Shaw, and this great thriller highlights why he’s such a wonderful character. Deaver has done it again.

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Review

The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective

by Brian Kenney

With its seven eccentric residents, charming historic bungalows, and a beautiful Santa Barbara setting just minutes from the beach, this novel will remind readers of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of a City series, although the latter lacks a mystery element. But they do both share an aging, somewhat hippy matriarch who owns and governs her own complex, and Mrs. B., the landlady of the Santa Barbara Marigold Cottages, only rents to those who need a leg up. Mrs. B.’s latest acquisition is Anthony, a reserved hulk with a prison background and the tats to prove it. Anthony makes the other tenants anxious, and when a dead body is found on the grounds of the cottages, the tenants, with the exception of Mrs. B, all point to Anthony. But Mrs. B. remains certain of his innocence, and heads down to the police station to turn herself in. Wonderfully eccentric with deep dives into many of the characters’ lives, this quickly paced read provides the perfect summer mystery.

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Review

10 Marchfield Square

by Brian Kenney

Yes, the comparison to Only Murders in the Building is inevitable (as it is to The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective, above, not to mention The Thursday Murder Club). All are narratives of place, in which the residents of a building, or buildings, are deeply involved in the story as amateur detectives, suspects, or both. Marchfield Square inhabits the smallest block of squares in London, with many of the units—Rear Window-like—facing internally, providing residents with a great deal of information about one another, but with little opportunity for actual conversation, at least without hollering across the courtyard. Remarkably, the elderly heiress who owns the complex, Celeste van Duren, is not just still alive, but actively engaged in running it. So when one of the residents is murdered (he totally deserved it), Celeste appoints two of the tenants—Audrey, a young woman who works as Celeste’s cleaner, and Lewis, a somewhat failed novelist—to a team responsible for investigating the murder. Because as we all know, the real police can’t be trusted to do anything right. Audrey and Lewis have to work out their own difficulties, but eventually the two are seen together snooping about the Square tracking the activities of their neighbors and friends. And guess what? Everyone has something to hide. This is loaded with humor and packed with punch, and cozy readers will be sure to keep a look out for more from this Audrey/Lewis duo.

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Review

Ruth Run

by Jeff Ayers

Ruth has an unconventional way of making money, and her method of robbing banks through a code in a hacked chip has finally caught up with her in Kaufman’s debut thriller. Taking cash in small amounts from transactions has made her a very rich cybercriminal. When alarms signal she’s been discovered, she grabs her accomplice, and they take off. A government agent named Mike has been watching her for some time and knows everything about Ruth since he feels he launched her career. Mike has planted tracking devices in her home, car, and a bag that never leaves her side, so he knows her every move. When his superiors want her eliminated since her bug is inside the government’s network, Mike agrees to help. However, he seems to have feelings for the woman he considers his protégé, so what is his objective? When Ruth realizes that the authorities are close and her usual tricks won’t be enough, she must improvise. But even though she is elusive and clever, her methods might put her in even more danger than she’s in from the law. Kaufman has created a compelling and complex character in Ruth, and watching her outwit and coordinate her surroundings to stay alive while being in control will endear her to readers. The motivations behind the people after this protagonist, and her inability to trust those she enlists for help, keep the paranoia above a level ten. Hopefully this terrific debut will launch a series featuring Ruth and her adventures.

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Review

Dirty Little War: A Crime Novel

by Willy Williams

Taking a dive is not Huckabee Waller’s style, much to the displeasure of the gangsters taking bets on the bare-knuckle fights near Chicago’s stockyards. It’s 1920, and Prohibition is the law of the land. Huck, who hopped a boxcar heading north after killing a pimp in New Orleans, turns to earning a living in illegal boxing matches. Impressed by Huck’s pugilistic skills and his past as a Louisiana moonshine runner, Dean O’Banion, head of the notorious North Side Gang, recruits Huck into smuggling booze across the Canadian border. Huck also runs a sideline as security for John D. Hertz’s Yellow Cab Company, which is involved in a vicious and violent competition with Morris Markin’s Checker Taxi. Soon Huck is rolling in dough, but his new luxurious lifestyle comes at a cost. When his new wife, Karla, urges him to find more legitimate employment, hitman Gypsy Doyle reminds Huck that the only way out “is feet first and horizontal.” Winner of the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Crime Novel (for Under an Outlaw Moon), Kalteis has written a tough, epic historical noir that covers the most tumultuous decade in Chicago’s mob history. The Zelig-like Huck encounters infamous mobsters of the era (O’Banion, Johnny Torrio, Vincent Drucci, Al Capone) and becomes tangentially involved in some of the most notorious killings (St. Valentine’s Day massacre). As the body count rises, Kalteis’s punchy, hard-boiled prose vividly captures the brutality behind the glitz of the Jazz Age. Fans of Max Allan Collins’s Nathan Heller historical mysteries and The Road to Perdition will enjoy this gritty novel.

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Review

A Death on Corfu

by Brian Kenney

The island of Corfu at the turn of the 20th century, with its native Greek population, large British expat community, and tensions therein, provides an excellent background for crime fiction. When her husband died unexpectedly several years ago, Minnie Harper was left with two children to raise on a modest income, with a deathbed promise to her husband that the family would remain in Corfu. Well-educated Minnie isn’t in the position to turn down a side gig, so when she is asked by her neighbor Stephen Dorian—a well-known, and handsome, mystery author—to type the manuscript of his latest book, she can only say yes. Despite her loathing of the man. But just as the two seem to settle into a disagreeable routine, Minnie discovers that one of the island’s young Greek women, who works as a maid, has been murdered. And the British community is doing its very best to ignore the murder, if not actually suppress it, while the local Greeks, for different reasons, are keeping their lips sealed. But Minnie isn’t about to let justice go undone, and with the help of Stephen, she heads off where no British woman has gone before her. Fans of The Durrells in Corfu, a hugely popular Masterpiece Theater drama set in the ‘30s, will appreciate this prequel of sorts, as will fans of cozy historical mysteries by Rhys Bowen, Jacqueline Winspear, and Amanda Flower.

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Review

The Busybody Book Club

by Brian Kenney

Nova Davies has relocated from London to a remote Cornish seaside town, in part to be with her fiancé, whom she is set to marry in a little more than a week. While Nova loves her job as a social worker in the local community center, she can’t help but be a bit frustrated by her clients. Must the five members of her book group—a real bunch of misfits if there ever was one—argue about everything? But that’s just the beginning of a series of misfortunes, all of which seem to point to Nova. First one of their own, a book group participant, disappears, only to have a dead body show up in his house. Then a significant sum of money, earmarked to repair the community center’s ancient roof, goes missing—could Nova really have been so dizzy that she forgot to lock up the building? There’s a lot of fun to be had here, from Phyllis, an Agatha Christie superfan who insists on using Christie’s plots to solve the murder and find the funds, to Nora, whose life couldn’t become more complicated thanks to a full-on control freak of a mother-in-law and a mom who’s stranded in South America, likely to miss her wedding. And the fiancé? Please dump him. A delight from start to finish, and sure to please cozy readers who appreciate strong characters, a great community setting, and a dollop of criminal activity. For readers who enjoy Lucy Gilmore and Emily Henry.

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Review

Strangers in Time

by Jeff Ayers

The horrors of war are reflected in the lives of three people in Baldacci’s (A Calamity of Souls) latest. Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters lives with his grandmother in cramped conditions. She thinks Charlie is spending his weekdays in school, but he has quit and spends the day roaming the streets, stealing food and money to survive. His goal is to eventually enlist and fight the Germans for taking away his parents and his sense of safety. When he steals from Ignatius Oliver’s bookshop, rather than demanding punishment for Charlie, Ignatius treats him well, almost like a father would. Like Charlie, Ignatius is dealing with loss, but it’s his wife instead of his parents. When 15-year-old Molly Wakefield returns to London after spending time away from the big city and conflict, she is horrified to learn her parents did not survive the bombing. The three bond, throughout the war trusting and protecting one another from a relentless enemy and secrets they can’t see coming. Baldacci chronicles the story of this makeshift family brought together by circumstances out of their control and how they can survive and confront whatever awaits. The author does a terrific job of transporting the reader back in time to a tumultuous period of living in London, and readers will practically smell the smoke and feel surrounded by rubble from the shattered buildings. Another great tale from a grandmaster storyteller.

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Review

Murder Takes a Vacation

by Danise Hoover

Readers of this author’s Tess Monaghan series might remember Muriel Blossom as a minor character. She’s plump and elderly, which gives her the ability to disappear into the background, making her effective at surveillance. But life is very different now. For one thing, a found lottery ticket has made her wealthy. She is on her way to France to meet an old friend for a cruise on the Seine, and arrives so early for her flight that she is upgraded to business class. Allan, gray-haired, attractive, also early, takes her under his wing, giving her a melatonin gummy to help her sleep. When they arrive in London too late for her connecting flight to Paris, he shepherds her through the unexpected day. This is not what our Muriel is used to, and though she is flattered and intrigued, her natural skepticism and self-awareness are ever-present. In Paris, she is confronted with murder, art theft, and an FBI agent (or is he?) and a newer, stronger, more outspoken version of herself. The river cruise offers more interests, but also more dangers, and ultimate solutions. Overarching all are Muriel’s memories of her dead husband and a lifetime of shame for her weight, which she finally confronts. The story is complicated, but the character of Muriel is so compelling and wonderful that it’s more important than any crime. Here’s a woman who has found her rhythm and style along with the culprits. Readers cannot fail to love her.

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