Tag:

Mystery & Detective

Review

Extinction

by Jeff Ayers

Erebus is a resort for the extremely wealthy, and those who visit the sprawling grounds in the heart of the Colorado Rockies get to experience Earth’s distant past. Using cutting-edge technology, scientists have been able to de-extinct mammals like woolly mammoths and plant life from the Pleistocene era. A young couple pays for a camping trip in the sprawling complex and is kidnapped and killed by what appears to be a group of ruthless hunters. Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash and county sheriff James Colcord lead the investigation. As the mystery creates national headlines, Cash and Colcord meet resistance from both the team at the resort and their own supervisors. What happened to the couple is only the beginning, and the shocking truth will threaten lives and the history books. Preston creates a Michael Crichton level of thought-provoking science and thrilling intrigue while avoiding writing a Jurassic Park clone. Extinction goes beyond the simple question of whether man should play God, and with a terrific cast of characters, Preston has a guaranteed bestseller.

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Review

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023

by Brian Kenney

It wasn’t until I began reviewing for firstCLUE that I read mystery anthologies. Now I’m a firm believer that everyone needs an anthology such as this one on their bedside table. The many stories collected here provide the perfect opportunity to relax, unwind, and travel near and far. As Unger writes in the introduction: “…this form [short fiction] has a special kind of magic, the ability to transport you quickly, intensely, to capture character, time, place, and story with immediacy and deliver it all with a punch.” And where our expectation of crime novels is that everything will be resolved in the end, short stories often finish more enigmatically, giving readers something to ruminate about. Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier, for example, transports us, in “Ripen,” to the Virgin Islands, where a politician’s arrogance leads to his dramatic downfall. A. J. Jacono’s “When We Remember Zion” tells the intensely chilling tale of a mentally ill abductor who delivers his hostage’s baby. We accompany an older veteran—now a professional criminal—who tries to escape from a botched job by returning to his childhood cabin in James A. Hearn’s “Home is the Hunter.” “New York Blues Redux,” by William Boyle, depicts a Brooklyn dive bar that becomes the setting for a night of tragedy. Congratulations to editors Unger and Cha for producing a volume as rich in diversity as it is compelling in its narratives.

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Review

The Princess of Las Vegas

by Henrietta Thornton

Though there’s a year between them, sisters Crissy and Betsy Dowling are so alike they could be twins. And they don’t only resemble each other, they also look very like one Diana Spencer, the late, lamented Princess of Wales. The resemblance is so strong that Crissy performs as Di in a long-running Las Vegas residency. The casino that hosts the emotional cabaret, the Buckingham Palace, or BP, has seen better days, as has Crissy’s relationship with her lookalike sister. Crissy claims that Betsy killed their mother, the circumstances around that a mystery for most of the book. But that doesn’t stop Betsy from re-entering her sister’s life by leaving her social worker job for her new boyfriend’s cryptocurrency firm that’s setting up shop in Vegas. When the owner of the BP is found dead, and Crissy doesn’t believe the police’s finding that it’s a suicide, it starts a chain of subterfuge and violence that makes the sort-of-royals wish that what happens in Vegas didn’t involve them. Bohjalian has intriguingly veered into a much more noir path than his usual, with the darkness complimenting his typical tight plotting and absorbing family drama. This is one for fans of campy fare mixed with family shenanigans and of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan.

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Review

Past Lying: A Karen Pirie Novel

by Willy Williams

It’s April 2020, the third week of a pandemic lockdown in an eerily quiet and empty Edinburgh. Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie of Police Scotland’s Historic Cases Unit has hunkered down with Detective Sergeant Daisy Mortimer in a “quarantine bubble” in her boyfriend Hamish’s spacious New Town apartment while he isolates up in the Highlands. There are no active cold cases to occupy the two officers, and Karen is languishing while longing for something meaningful to investigate. She fights her restlessness with her daily one-hour walks, the maximum allowed under tight restrictions. But when DC Jason Murray receives a call from a contact at the National Library about an unfinished manuscript in the archives of a recently deceased crime novelist, the team may have stumbled upon a connection to the cold case of a young woman who disappeared a year earlier. But how do they investigate a crime while trying to stay within COVID protocols? A determined Karen finds herself “making mincemeat” of the regulations, but as she tells a colleague, “I have to be out on the streets doing what I do. Because I want the world to still be a decent place when we come out on the other side.” In her seventh atmospheric series thriller, McDermid skillfully combines a twisty plot of murder and vengeance with the personal dramas of her detectives, set against the dramatic backdrop of a global pandemic. By the novel’s end, no one has been left unscathed by this traumatic time. In her acknowledgments, McDermid notes that she penned this novel only in 2023, needing the distance of time to write about those frightening early days. I suspect her book is the first of many crime novels that will explore the impact of COVID on the human psyche.

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Review

Under the Storm

by Brian Kenney

It’s winter when a fire destroys a farmhouse in rural Sweden, burning it to the ground. With the parents out for the night, the only victim was the twenty-something daughter of the house. But she wasn’t killed by the fire; her autopsy reveals that she was murdered by blows to the head. Who would have wanted to kill Lovisa, who was loved by everyone? While the murderer is quickly identified, tried, and jailed, this story continues to expand in multiple directions, exploring the impact of a murder on a community, the families, even Edvard, the perpetrator. It’s also a coming-of-age novel as we follow Edvard’s nephew, who grows up in the shadow of his uncle’s acts, worrying that he too has a propensity for violence. But at its heart, this is the tale of Vidar Jörgensson, a young police officer who was one of the first officers at the fire and helped to solve it, but then spent years ruminating over the case. This is no less than a brilliant crime novel. Carlsson combines his deep knowledge of criminal motivations and trauma—he has a doctorate in criminology—with rich, compelling storytelling. Fans of the TV series Broadchurch and the works of Ann Cleeves will enjoy the deep community focus. Sure to be one of the big books of early 2024.

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Review

Hammers and Homicide

by Jeff Ayers

Dawna Carpenter runs a hardware store in downtown Pine Bluff, Oregon. She struggles to keep it going, especially after the death of her beloved husband, Bob. The building shares space with a boutique, and the woman who runs Lipstick and Lace is a real piece of work. A real-estate developer in town has bold plans to open a luxurious hotel, but when he’s found dead in the hardware store’s bathroom, Dawna’s life gets turned upside down even more than she thought possible. The quirky cast of characters, the slowly building mystery, and the light-hearted tone make Hammers and Homicide a terrific debut. Charles also does an outstanding job of addressing how people deal with the grief of losing a loved one, without being overly depressing. Readers will be fixing to read more mysteries of this series and Paula Charles.

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Review

Bones Under the Ice

by Henrietta Thornton

Jhonni Laurent is the first female sheriff in her rural Indiana town of Field’s Crossing and its surrounding quad-county area. She tries to be more community oriented than her predecessor, showing up at the first day of school to greet parents and students, for example, and avoiding all efforts at improper influence. Her work is a hit with locals but isn’t appreciated by a colleague whom she beat in the race for the job. Or his nasty buddy at the local newspaper, who’s doing all he can to get Jhonni out of the political picture. She doesn’t need the first local murder in…ever?…to happen on her watch, but when teenager Stephanie Gattison is found frozen in a snowbank, it looks like foul play. The body is barely thawed before another victim is found, this time an ice fisher who’s found frozen to the lake surface. Fans of Emily Littlejohn’s Detective Gemma Monroe and Tony and Anne Hillerman’s police officer Bernadette Manualito will enjoy making the acquaintance of this steadfast, likable, and capable sheriff, while those who love a small-town atmosphere, with its closeness as well as its backbiting, will feel right at home here. A debut author to watch.

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Review

Neighborhood Watch

by Henrietta Thornton

This book could just as well be titled When the HOA Attacks or Ring Cameras on Steroids: A How-To. Oleander Court, a street in ritzy Alpharetta, GA, has it all. The fountain with $500 apiece koi, the perfectly maintained lawns (did I mention that HOA?), the perfectly Botoxed neighbors. But a few residents keep things from being too plastic. An artist, Helen Beecham, has moved in and while she likes to observe the others, she’s doesn’t love their snooty book clubs (at which the book is never mentioned) or other tortuous gatherings. A Korean American family, the Jungs, lives on Oleander, too, amid nasty comments; one neighbor in particular spreads the rumor that the mother barely speaks English, only Chinese. Lesbian couple Ray and Laura are hiding their rocky marriage and past secrets. And then there’s Adelaide, who formerly lived in a trailer park but is now married to a doctor and struggling to feel she belongs. Closed circle meets cozy when the nastier neighbors start getting bumped off in their homes, but with little attendant grisliness and dollops of dark humor. Come for the bitchiness, stay for the deep characterization of the oddball characters as well as the puzzling whodunit.

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Review

The Road to Murder

by Brian Kenney

Every flight headed to Italy should have on board a few dozen copies of Trinchieri’s mysteries—they are the perfect warm up to an Italian vacation, full of wry humor, eccentric characters, a gentle murder or two, plenty of excellent wine, and best of all a whole lot of Tuscan cooking. Ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle moved to the small town of Gravigna after the death of his wife, a native, and he’s been embraced by the residents, even helping out in the kitchen of his in-laws’ ristorante (and getting great reviews). But he can’t leave his law enforcement years completely behind him, and he’s regularly summoned by Perillo, one of the local carabinieri, to help out on a case. Here, in the fourth installment, the murder victim is an older woman—owner of the handsome Villa Salviati—whose murder produces a bevy of possible suspects, including lovers, friends, and a couple of mean-spirited daughters. Will Nico and Perillo ever be able to return Gravigna back to more tranquil days? A delight from start to finish.

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Review

The Watchmaker’s Hand

by Jeff Ayers

Paraplegic forensic Captain Lincoln Rhyme; his wife, Detective Amelia Sachs; and their team of NYPD officers race against the clock in Deaver’s terrifying thriller. A construction crane collapses, and without a last-second move by the operator, it would have done extensive damage. The crash ends up only killing several people rather than hundreds. It was sabotage, and the crash is only the beginning, as those claiming responsibility will conduct another act in 24 hours unless their demands are met. One by one, the team members experience accidents designed to eliminate Rhyme’s trustworthy colleagues and those he truly cares about. Rhyme learns that the mastermind is someone he has been unable to capture, The Watchmaker. The Captain’s nemesis seeks revenge, his end goal to murder Rhyme. Deaver is the master of manipulation and telling a story quickly, and he is at the top of his game here. Readers should not be intimidated by the 15 previous entries in the series, as this one can be read as a standalone. The Watchmaker’s Hand is a fantastic thriller with great characters and jaw-dropping surprises.

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