Tag:

Debut

Review

The Bush Tea Murder

by Brian Kenney

St. Thomas makes a perfect environment for a mystery: rich in history and culture with plenty of family drama to go around and some longtime friendships to rely upon. Culinary journalist Naomi Sinclair spends most of her time off-island, although St. Thomas, and a budding romance, keep tugging at her to come home and invest herself full-time in the island. ”Thing about history, Naomi—about any kind of story—is that how it’s told matters,” she is reminded by her former Foods and Nutrition teacher, Mrs. LaPlace. But even if Naomi returns to St. Thomas regularly, she doesn’t expect she will be returning to unleash one troubling case after another, culminating in a story of murder. Fans of Joanne Fluke, Vivian Chien, and Mia P. Manansala will delight in this mystery-plus-food concoction.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Worse than a Lie

by Henrietta Thornton

When Chicago Metra rail system police officer Hollis Montrose is pulled over by the city’s regular police the night of Barack Obama’s first presidential win, he follows every order. He tells the officers repeatedly that he’s a police officer himself and begs them repeatedly to look at his ID, but it does no good. Hollis, a Black man, is shot 10 times in the back by the white officers. Enter Beau Lee Cooper, a Black lawyer who has made a name for himself as a tough, smart winner. He can see that Hollis, who’s now hospitalized and accused of being the aggressor in the roadside encounter, desperately needs help, the first challenge being the enormous bail that’s engineered to send the badly injured man to jail. From the beginning, and later in court, it looks like Chicago PD and the legal system are targeting Hollis, and it takes everything Beau has to push back. The supporting characters—especially Hollis’s and Beau’s wives, Gigi and Rocky—create a loving backdrop for this tense legal thriller, and readers will be as invested in the lives of Hollis and Beau as they are in the outcome of Hollis’s trial. Gripping court proceedings lead up to a brilliant and satisfying ending. Get this on your reading list!

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Robbie McNeil’s Hit List.

by Danise Hoover

A characteristic that makes mysteries such a popular genre is that the concept of right and wrong is so often very clear. Not so much here. Robbie, our heroine, and Dee, her queerplatonic partner in a gay karaoke bar in a nothing Indiana town, are both successful contract killers. Their jobs are done quickly, cleanly, and without emotion, except for Robbie’s latest one. The information on the local target is sketchy and the target himself suddenly disappears. She can’t afford to return the deposit because she and Robbie have sunk all their money into a theatrical venture, and besides, it feels all wrong. Instead of ignoring who the target is, she works hard to find out the exact opposite. We have local politicians, Robbie’s musical ambitions, and the lively karaoke scene all tangled up with a client who just won’t quit in his effort to have this target done away with. Heath provides a fun story with a great deal of gender and identity fluidity. There is a happy ending of sorts, but is it right?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Bush Tea Murder

by Brian Kenney

St. Thomas makes a perfect environment for a mystery: rich in history and culture with plenty of family drama to go around and some longtime friendships to rely upon. Culinary journalist Naomi Sinclair spends most of her time off-island, although St. Thomas, and a budding romance, keep tugging at her to come home and invest herself full-time in the island. ”Thing about history, Naomi—about any kind of story—is that how it’s told matters,” she is reminded by her former Foods and Nutrition teacher, Mrs. LaPlace. But even if Naomi returns to St. Thomas regularly, she doesn’t expect she will be returning to unleash one troubling case after another, culminating in a story of murder. Fans of Joanne Fluke, Vivian Chien, and Mia P. Manansala will delight in this mystery-plus-food concoction.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Midnight Taxi

by Danise Hoover

Book of the Week

Driving a taxi is often the first job for a new immigrant, as it was for the father of Siriwathi, or Siri, as her friends call her. She drives the cab now as a family obligation. A brown woman doing this job late at night is not exactly ideal or safe, nor is it what she planned to do with her life. At the court building in lower Manhattan, she fortuitously picks up a fare: another brown woman, another Sri Lankan, a public defender. In the short time it takes to drive to Brooklyn, they bond somewhat. That’s good, because Siri’s next fare, one to JFK airport, is dead on arrival. Siri is arrested and really needs a lawyer; Alex, a wealthy friend from private-school days (Siri was a scholarship student) helps bail her out, and he and the two women do a deep investigation into the victim, finding more than any run-of-the-mill police inquiry would. This is an ultra-complicated story, but what makes it special is a view of immigrant New York that few see. Deep family ties, strong food culture, and love and longing for a better future build a picture that one can only hope isn’t quashed by today’s political chaos.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

A Zoom with a View

by Brian Kenney

This is one packed piece of crime fiction, certain to bedazzle any and all mystery readers. Blue Oak is a unique small town on the border of Austin, committed to “Keep Blue Oak Weirder.” Which, it turns out, isn’t all that hard. It starts with the return of Leo (Leonora), who has been back on the East Coast completing her Ph.D. in English, but has yet to find a tenured position. Let’s just say that Blue Oak wouldn’t be her first choice, especially with her challenging mother, Karina, a real estate agent whose motto should be “the higher the hair, the closer to god.” But no worries, Leo has a whole team of friends from her BFF, Emily, to Mack, high school sweetheart and now local detective. But a fire during the annual Fourth of July celebration leads to all sorts of crazy accusations…and when Leo comes across the body of dead rival real-estate agent and social media influencer, Chaz, things really start to fall apart, and Leo has no choice but to dive in the deep end to try to save her closest friends. And when did Mack get so handsome?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Murder Will Out

by Danise Hoover

In this sparkling, energetic debut, we have a murder to be solved, not just for the benefit of the community, but for the health and well-being of the ghosts that abide within the Cameron family mansion that is under contention. Willow, graduate music student and accomplished organist, receives an invitation from her long-estranged godmother, Sue, to attend her wedding. The message was written long before it was sent. Sue is now dead, and Willow makes it to the funeral with just enough time to play Sue’s favorite music. Maine’s Little North Island is where she spent her summers with Sue until her parents summarily ended the arrangement with no explanation. Sue had come out as a lesbian to Willow’s parents, which they found abhorrent. After the service, the next Cameron heir is poisoned, and Willow, along with a tight group of local women, set out to unearth the truth. Her own top-notch research skills pale in comparison to those of the village librarian, who unearths essential old family facts. This is a wonderfully tangled plot, and the characters are aided in the solving by a fantastic range of ghosts. It is oh-so-much fun and leaves open the possibility of another to come.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Pie & Mash Detective Agency

by Jeff Ayers

Book of the Week

What does a dating millennial couple do to add adventure to their lives? Take a class on becoming a private detective, of course! Jane Pye and Simon Mash are quirky; even their class instructor finds them a bit strange. With no job possibilities anywhere in their immediate futures, they decide to open the Pie & Mash Detective Agency after they graduate. Then they are given a class assignment that the instructor guarantees will result in a failing grade. Dev Hooper’s girlfriend, Nellie Thorne, has vanished. The police believe she’s just left him, but Dev thinks otherwise. As Jane and Simon start investigating, they stumble upon what’s either a wild coincidence or something more sinister. This Nellie Thorne is not the first woman with her name to vanish; the phenomenon has been occurring for decades. All of the women are similar in appearance, and all disappeared after around a year of dating. Is this a weird legend or ghosts? If it’s real, are others with that name safe? J.D. Brinkworth is the writing team of Jo Dinkin and Catherine Brinkworth, and this quirky, fun mystery will keep readers guessing while bringing a smile to their faces. The main characters are a hoot, and a hodgepodge of strange folks with secret agendas surrounds them. Filled with British humor, this introduction to Jane and Simon is hopefully the start of a long series. (DEBUT)

0 comment
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

A Killer in the Family

by Willy Williams

Ali Azeem is a successful Mumbai wedding photographer, but, to his worried Ma, his life will only begin when he marries the right Ismaili Muslim girl. However, on his first arranged meeting with pretty and reserved Maryam Khan, the daughter of New York real-estate tycoon Abbas Khan, Ali is attracted, not to Maryam, but to her divorced older sister, the sensuous and mercurial Farhan. Still, because of his father’s financial difficulties, Ali agrees to the match with Maryam. After the wedding (a marathon, multiday affair vividly described), the newlyweds move to Manhattan, and Ali finds himself in a glamorous world of money, power, and prestige. But the naive bridegroom soon learns that beneath the glittering surface lie dark family secrets. Farhan, with whom Ali has embarked on a torrid affair, warns him against her domineering father: “Papa is a monster.” What is Abbas’s connection to the serial murders of young Indian women in Queens, as Farhan implies? Shifting between Ali’s first-person narrative and Farhan’s diary entries, Ahmad skillfully builds page-turning suspense with carefully plotted twists and red herrings that keep readers guessing until the chilling conclusion. His exceptional thriller is also a layered portrait of an immigrant family that has made it big in America and the moral costs paid for this success. With rich character development (Farhan is larger than life) and emotional storytelling, it’s hard to believe this is a first novel.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

A Field Guide to Murder

by Brian Kenney

A recent widower, Harry Lancaster spends most of his time at home, nursing a fractured hip. Entertainment comes in the form of some Rear Window-like spying on his neighbors—affluent, suburban Ohio seniors have more going on than you might imagine—and his growing friendship with Emma, his millennial and funloving caregiver. Harry and Emma may not always see eye-to-eye. Harry is an anthropologist (thus the book’s title) while Emma is a nurse, but they make a powerful team. So when Harry’s neighbor Sue is murdered in her home, the two are able to quickly pair up and pursue Sue’s murderer. But the plot hardly ends there, with Harry calling up old friends for help, Emma debating whether to go ahead and marry her fiancé, and a cold-blooded killer circling Harry’s condo. This cross-generational cozy-but-with-murder is sure to delight readers of Deanna Raybourn and Richard Osman.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail