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Review

Death in Cornwall

by Brian Kenney

It’s been over a decade since we’ve heard from Cambridge DCI Arthur St. Just and criminologist cum mystery writer Portia De’Ath, now his fiancé. In coastal Cornwall for a mini-vacay, the two can’t resign themselves to just lying on the beach. Instead, they’re busy scoping out the town, sniffing out controversy—especially the proposed slipway the fisher men and women want to build—and meeting up with the locals. The latter includes the self-made aristocrat Lord Bodwally, who wants Portia to help him with his memoirs. But when they visit Bodwally’s grand estate, they find him lying in a pool of blood, his right carotid artery severed. And with that, St. Just is off and running as he tracks down the murderer. Given that this is a short book, Malliet does three things really well. First, we learn a lot about Cornwall and the Cornish people—the Cornwall tourist bureau should sign her up. Two, the tension between wealthy incomers—seeking a weekend home and driving up the cost of housing—and the residents is one that is playing out in many communities, and here it is especially well-handled. Finally, this is one of the few mysteries that addresses the experiences of COVID-19; most series just skip over it as though it never happened. Malliet sets the novel after what the characters call “Plague Time” and doesn’t hesitate to discuss the impact the pandemic had on this small Cornish town. It’s refreshing. Cozy readers will be happy to welcome back this duo.

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Review

Fake

by Brian Kenney

A wonderful descent into the New York art world led by a hero you won’t soon forget. Twenty-something Emma Caan is a highly skilled artist who excels at recreating nineteenth-century paintings. She works for a studio that supplies clients, ranging from high-flying collectors to leading museums, with reproductions to protect their investment. Lest there is any confusion, each work is signed by Emma and indicates it’s a copy. Despite her expertise, the salary is lousy and she can barely afford life in New York City. Until she meets Leonard Sobetsky, Russian billionaire, renowned art collector, and one of her clients. Before she can say do svidaniya to her old life, Sobetsky sets her up as the assistant director of New York’s most important gallery, moves her into a glam SoHo apartment, and continues to feed her paintings to reproduce. Within weeks she’s doing vodka shots on Sobetsky’s private plane, heading to Art Basel Hong Kong. But since every chapter begins with a brief transcript of Emma being interviewed by the FBI, even the least attentive reader will know that something is up. The question is, how bad will it be? And while Emma is really just a copyist—true forgers take much more care, sourcing period canvas, for starters—why quibble when you’re having so much fun? A little chick lit, a little Devil Wears Prada, and a little Barbara Shapiro, Fake should find broad appeal.

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Review

The Younger Wife

by Henrietta Thornton

Quirky meets romantic meets WTF in this Australian import that’s brimming with character. Two very different sisters are at the center of the maelstrom. Rachel is a beautiful and successful baker who spends a week perfecting tiny roses on a wedding cake but eats two tiers of it by the fistful hours before delivery. Her sister, Tully, married with two little boys, is consumed with anxiety and a compulsion to steal. The younger wife of the title is Heather, who’s marrying Rachel and Tully’s father, Stephen Aston, and whose big day opens the novel. Stephen’s ex-wife roaming the altar during the vows is bad enough, but when the couple moves to the sacristy, a scream is heard and the celebrant reappears in the church covered in blood. Hepworth (The Secrets of Midwives) then chronicles the leadup to this chaos, a saga that involves a hot water bottle stuffed with $100,000, romance with cake-pun-loving delivery man, and hilarious observations about the million ways we sabotage ourselves. The Astons also face their share of heartaches and worse (Alzheimer’s disease, rape, and domestic violence are part of the story). For fans of domestic suspense and of the Australian show Offspring, which also features loving sisters and their interesting choices.

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Review

The Shadow House

by Brian Kenney

If you arrived at your new house and found a package at the entrance, containing not some welcome brownies from a neighbor but a grotesquely mutilated bird, what would you do? If you’re anything like me, you’d head for the hills. But Alex, a single mother-of-two, is made from tougher stuff. Escaping from an abusive partner in Sydney, she’s trying out Pine Ridge, an ecovillage out in the boondocks. She’s committed to making it work, especially for her teenage son, who got up to some nasty behavior online. But the bird is only the beginning, as the creepiness includes more horrifying presents, vandalism, and surveillance. It turns out that Alex’s experiences aren’t all that different from those of another family six years ago, but unlike many a thriller protagonist, she’s no victim, and sets out to confront the evil before it destroys her and her family. This is a wonderfully written work of suspense that succeeds in being both completely terrifying and totally believable—no easy feat. For fans of Lisa Jewell and Ruth Ware.

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Review

The Kindness of Strangers

by Brian Kenney

We have cozies. We have thrillers. But what about mensch mysteries? Because Amos Parisman, AKA the oldest living Jewish PI in Los Angeles, is the definition of a real mensch. In this third book in the series, Amos comes out of retirement—a retirement he doesn’t want—to help the police investigate the murder of a homeless woman, whose corpse he discovers in the bottom of a garbage bin. Soon enough, that murder is followed by others, until it becomes clear that Amos and his sidekick, Omar, have a serial killer on their hands. While the search for the killer provides the underpinning of the novel, there’s always a lot more happening in an Amos Parisman mystery than just the crimes. Here, Amos does a lot of research into the homeless—so often invisible—and the discomfort they provoke in much of society. Also prominent in this volume is Amos’s poignant relationship with his wife, Loretta, who’s now living in a nursing home as she has advanced dementia, and his growing relationship with Mara, whose husband also lives in the home. A wonderful voice, great storytelling, and a completely unique character.

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Review

The Favor

by Henrietta Thornton

This is one of the best-plotted thrillers I’ve read in ages; it’s also a great portrayal of why women experiencing domestic violence are stuck. We meet Leah Dawson during her carefully choreographed routine of visiting a different liquor store every day. She hides the booze from her violent husband, Liam, a lawyer who has coercive control down to an artform. Leah’s legal career came to an end recently because her husband didn’t like her reading a work email at dinner, and took action. At the liquor store, something compels Leah to follow a fellow shopper, pediatrician McKenna Hawkins. Soon Leah’s routinely watching the woman, who’s also needlessly unemployed, from the street outside McKenna’s clinically clean home. The reason Leah felt drawn to McKenna is quickly apparent: McKenna is just like Leah, or rather McKenna’s husband, Zach, is just like Leah’s Liam. Both have ego to spare, enjoy speaking slowly to their wives to make them feel stupid, and are financially abusive. These guys have it all, until they don’t. No spoilers here, but get this book for the very original storyline, true-to-life characters, and a searing look at the pain and mind games endured behind too many closed doors. For more on why “she can leave any time” is ridiculous and insulting, read the afterword by Murphy, an attorney who’s represented survivors of intimate partner violence.

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Review

The Mitford Vanishing

by Henrietta Thornton

The Mitford sisters, six eccentric socialites and political renegades in the interwar years in England, encountered a frightful number of murders in their day, at least as told in Fellowes’s glamorous historical series, now in its fifth installment. This time, Decca, second-youngest daughter of patriarchal Lord Redesdale and his long-suffering wife, Sydney Bowles, is missing. The family suspects that the 18-year-old has run off with her second cousin, Churchill’s nephew Esmond Romilly, to marry him and fight on the side of the anti-facists in the Spanish Civil War (which Decca and Esmond did in real life). Enter the Mitfords’ former maid Louisa and her husband, Guy, proprietors of the Cannon & Sullivan detective agency. Hired to look for Decca, Louisa nervously embraces the fledgling rights of women in 1937, using her maiden name for work and leaving the couple’s baby with sitters. Indeed, she’s far more advanced than the Mitford “girls,” whose blithely colonial ways color their every move. Fellowes’s at times very sad, often funny story stands out for its unusual, Spanish Civil War backdrop; it also offers pleasingly scathing treatment of Nazi sympathizers, exciting chases from England to Spain and back (repeatedly!), and an extraordinarily tense closing scene. While this works as a standalone, go back to the earlier books for a treat.

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Review

The Book of Cold Cases

by Brian Kenney

A medical receptionist by day, Shea Collins operates a popular true-crime website that specializes in cold cases. Single, a loner, and herself a victim—she was abducted as a child—Shea reserves her passions for her blog. Until the day that Beth Greer comes to Shea’s office. Back in 1977, Greer was tried and acquitted in the Lady Killer Murders, in which two men were killed, seemingly for the fun of it, by a female serial killer. Since then, the beautiful, sophisticated, and super-rich Beth has spoken to nearly no one—making it all the more remarkable that she agrees to be interviewed by Shea. Beth slowly opens up to the interviewer—inviting her into her super creepy mansion and deeply introspective life—as Shea struggles to put together the fragments Beth shares. This novel is beautifully written and perfectly paced. It creates a powerful sense of place in its depiction of an Oregon coastal community, and doesn’t shy away from tackling larger social issues, such as the sexism Beth experienced throughout her trial. Finally, its use of the paranormal—something I typically shy away from—is as terrifying as it is credible

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Review

Secret Identity

by Henrietta Thornton

Anyone who’s worked in publishing will recognize the low pay, deadline whirlwind, and scramble for recognition facing Carmen Valdez, a Miami transplant in New York. Worse, she’s a secretary trying to advance in a man’s world within a man’s world—comics publishing in 1975. Male colleagues sometimes show up drunk and their work is barely passable. Still, Carmen’s boss, whose father started the company, reminds her that “in the real world, we grant jobs based on experience and merit” when she gives him her comics scripts. Then her smoking buddy at work, Harvey, proposes to help by submitting a project by the two of them, but mainly by her, as his, and to reveal her authorship once it’s a success. Things don’t go according to plan, with not only Carmen’s professional future but also her safety jeopardized by a killer targeting her circle. Complementing this puzzling whodunit is a major plus for comics and graphic novel readers: Segura’s insider view of the comics industry and its history, as well as his spot-on chronicling of the too-frequent backstabbing among striving artists. For fans of Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl, another look at a young woman trying to make it in publishing

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Review

The Secrets We Share

by Brian Kenney

A bold, ambitious novel with a big, multigenerational story line, a busload of characters, and a smart balance between mystery and suspense. Natalie Cavanaugh and Glenn Abbott are sisters, but not the least alike. Natalie is a tough-as-nails Boston cop, while Glenn is a food blogger and now a book author. What they have in common is what they never talk about: the murder of their father, who was bludgeoned to death in the woods behind their house. But through a series of incidents in Glenn’s life today, the women are drawn back into their shared past, and the story line opens up to include Glenn’s husband, her tween daughter, Natalie’s colleagues on the police force, and many more. It’s remarkable that Hill can keep so many subplots afloat while at the same time creating such a level of suspense that the reader feels as though they are being catapulted to the knock-out conclusion. Hill is the author of the more cozy-ish Hester Thursby series, and librarian Hester makes a few delightful cameos in this book. For fans of Robert Bryndza and Karin Slaughter.

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