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Women Sleuths

Review

Cold Brew Corpse: A Coffee Lovers Mystery #2

by Brian Kenney

A mystery with all the right ingredients, in all the right proportions: compelling crime, eccentric characters, dishy police chief, fascinating location, and above all else, Lana Lewis, a quirky, smart, witty, and sarcastic protagonist. After getting laid off from her job as a journalist in Miami, Lana moved back to her hometown of Devil’s Beach, a barrier island north of the city, and opened Perkatory, a happening coffee shop. When Raina—who owns the hot yoga studio next door—goes missing, Lana dusts off her journalism creds and heads into the contentious, and gossip-ridden, world of yoga to cover the story for the local paper. But finding Raina takes a village, and Lana gets help from a wonderful cast, including her yoga-loving, hippie Dad—whose medical marijuana prescription is always filled—and Noah Garcia, the aforementioned police chief. Lana and Noah’s burgeoning relationship, despite plenty of professional conflict, is a strong element in the novel. But at the book’s heart is Lana, a complex character who’s recovering from a divorce, wary of romance, and uncertain about her career, yet with a great sense of humor. If I can’t spend the afternoon hanging out with Lana in Perkatory, then please get me the next volume in this series ASAP.

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Review

Like a Sister

by Henrietta Thornton

From the outside, Desiree Pierce had it all. Famous hip-hop producer father, starring role on a rich-kid reality show, a huge audience following her every diamond-studded move on Instagram. But her sister, Melina, or Lena, has waited years for the phone call saying that drugs have finally killed Desiree, and that moment is here. Fed up as she is with donning her metaphorical Super Black Woman cape, Lena drags it on, again, to start picking up the pieces. But the background to Desiree’s supposedly accidental death starts to look off. For starters, she was terrified of needles and never would have injected heroin like the police say. And what was she doing in Lena’s residential Bronx neighborhood, miles from her glitzy lifestyle? Lena’s fast-paced investigation of what she believes to be a murder takes her back to painful episodes with her family, a clan tight-knit enough to care deeply about one another but that at the same time can get exasperated to the point of estrangement. Twists combine with deft writing and compelling characters—especially the relatable Lena—to create a memorable novel that’s perfect for those who like tales of flawed love and strong women.

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Review

Front Page Murder

by Brian Kenney

Yes, another cover featuring a woman in a period outfit with her back turned towards us—except this time the book is a rollicking good mystery. It’s World War II, the U.S. has just entered the war, and Irene Ingram’s fiancé and father have both enlisted, leaving Irene to step into her father’s shoes as editor-in-chief of the Progress Herald, the local paper. Young—she’s in her early twenties—and female, Irene has to continually prove herself, whether it’s to her mother who doesn’t believe women belong in the workforce or to the newspaper staff who bridle under a woman’s leadership. When her star reporter, Moe Bauer, is discovered dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs, Irene has more pressing matters to attend to than the grousing among her staff, all the more so when she figures out that Moe was likely murdered. Then Sam Markowicz, owner of the local hardware store, becomes the victim of anti-Semitic harassment, and another man, also Jewish, is attacked in a local factory. Irene puts aside features about victory gardens and the like and dives into a criminal investigation. The setting—small time life during World War II—is a brilliant choice, and the language and references are pitch perfect. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, Rhys Bowen’s Molly Murphy, and Mariah Frederick’s Jane Prescott will enjoy meeting Irene Ingram.

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Review

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead

by Henrietta Thornton

Apart from the previous title in this series, Finlay Donovan is Killing It, Cosimano’s writes for young adults, and the fun-packed absurdity she brings to that table works just as well for grownups. Honestly, the plot here is kind of ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter at all, because readers will be swept up in this wacky heroine’s attempts to just make it through her mishap-filled life and have a little romance along the way (dishy law student! Dishy cop!). In the previous book, Finlay was mistaken for a contract killer (it could happen!) and was forced to kill a man (O.K., that happened twice…bear with me here). The shenanigans continue in this title when she stumbles across a plot to kill her ex-husband, and she fears being the first suspect if he’s killed. Finlay’s puzzling out of who’s behind the plan involves help from her equally bizarre-scenario-prone nanny and, sometimes, trips to dispose of body parts (not her husband’s body and not the bodies from the first book…look, it’s complicated). A fun romp for bookclubs and for anyone who enjoys slapstick mysteries. Finlay is coming soon to the big screen, according to Cosimano’s author’s note, but read the book first!

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Review

Pay Dirt Road

by Henrietta Thornton

In this striking, character-driven debut, Annie McIntyre is back in her stifling—temperature-wise and socially—Texas hometown, Garnett, where football is a religion and prom queen a lifetime appointment. Smart, introspective Annie escaped and went to college, but now she’s waiting tables while student-loan repayments loom. When a hit-and-run death and the strangling of Annie’s coworker happen within days of each other, it seems like Garnett’s dirt and buildings as much as its people heave a resigned sigh at another thing to deal with. Annie’s former-sheriff grandfather now has a private investigation business, but it falls mostly to his granddaughter to care enough to solve the cases. The language of Annie’s inner thoughts is the kind of writing that makes you too stunned to read on for a bit. Her anguish at a teenage attack is “a morsel of pain under my tongue” and her lingering bedtime thoughts are “ghosts pressed and curled against my back.” Allen already won the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest for this book, and no wonder. While waiting for this, try Wiley Cash’s also-stunning A Land More Kind Than Home, which Allen’s writing brings to mind.

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Review

The Bone Track

by Henrietta Thornton

Alexa Glock’s latest adventure (the third in a trilogy, after Molten Mud Murder and The Bones Remember) is reminiscent of the recent crop of books in which people are thrown together, or reunited, often on vacation, with a killer in their midst. But this book stands out from its plot-mates due to its unusual location and forensic-science focus. The setting is New Zealand’s (very) remote Milford Track, a real hiking trail that dispels all images of the country as hobbit-filled and quaint. Fiordland, where the Track is located, is treacherous, and the travelers face additional peril from rain-caused landslides and creeks that now have rapids. Alexa, an American who lives in New Zealand, realizes that there’s even more to fear when she finds a skeleton hidden on the trail; then a hiker is found dead and suddenly everyone looks suspicious. Vacationing with Alexa is her brother, Charlie. Their childhood misunderstandings and pain persist and are echoed in troubles revealed in the other hikers’ lives. This makes for a compelling thriller but also a thought-provoking look at how to move past hurt and find what’s important. A bonus: Johnson unobtrusively shares many details about Maori culture, New Zealand’s volcanic landscapes, and forensic science, especially involving Alexa’s fascinating specialty: dead people’s teeth.

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Review

The Wrong Woman

by Henrietta Thornton

This book could just as well be titled The Wrong Man, as it’s a master class in how the police can trudge through the investigation of numerous other suspects before finding the right one. The book stars a dogged FBI agent, Kendall Beck, who reports her car stolen when she can’t get the Denver police to take seriously the disappearance of her roommate, Gwen, who borrowed the car. Professional courtesy means that Kendall is allowed inside details as the hunt for Gwen gathers steam. At the same time, she’s investigating a case of her own: a missing little girl, whose neighbor seems odd and too friendly. Given that a stolen car doesn’t seem like it will take much work, the Denver detective who’s looking for Gwen also has another case of his own, that of a woman who may be the victim of a serial killer who’s been working the area for years. Friendships, love, and the grief when those connections end add a personal touch to the legal and police procedural details shared by Sparks, who formerly had a law career. For fans of Tana French and other authors who shine a light on relationships in policing.

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Review

A Deadly Bone to Pick

by Brian Kenney

Live in Massachusetts and need to reinvent your life? Move to a small seaside town on the California coast. Molly Madison, ex-cop, former PI, and dog wrangler, does just that, wanting to put behind her the murder of her husband, for which she was never fully exonerated. Fortunately, Pier Point is a welcoming community that is perfect for Molly; her golden retriever, Harlow; and Noodle, a neighbor’s enormous, slobbering Saint Berdoodle that Molly semi-adopts. On a morning beach walk, Noodle digs up a woman’s hand, setting in motion a search for the victim and the murderer that again has Molly on the police’s radar. Rothschild has created the first in what could be a wonderful series. Molly is quirky and totally believable. The community is engaging. And Harlow and Noodle, rooted in real-dog behavior, make great co-stars who lend a great deal to the story. I’m hooked.

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Review

A Valiant Deceit

by Henrietta Thornton

There’s no shortage of WWII novels, but this second in a duology is happily in the less-crowded subgenre of the women behind the scenes. It stars Olive Bright, a kind, loyal, and sometimes-brash young woman who keeps even family in the dark about her work. Pre-war, she inherited her father’s loft of racing pigeons, and now lends them to the war effort as carriers. They’re brought from England to mainland Europe by government agents, then fly home bearing maps and letters that Olive and her gruff supervisor, the dashingly named Jameson Aldridge, hope will help beat the Nazis. Olive’s avian work isn’t the only deceit here; as cover for her job at the Bletchley Park-like Brickendonbury Manor, she and Jamie pretend to be in a relationship, but she hopes for more between them (as will readers). The mystery here concerns a body found in nearby woods, but the worldbuilding, characters, and details of espionage-assisting pigeons make the tale. Graves’s afterword discusses the real Operation Columba, which saw the allies drop thousands of pigeons from Denmark to France from 1941 to ‘44. Readers can go back to the first book in the series, Olive Bright, Pigeoneer; also try Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code, which features women codebreakers at Bletchley Park

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Review

Her Perfect Life

by Henrietta Thornton

Lily Atwood has the titular perfect life. She’s an Emmy-winning journalist, the kind who wants to be hard-hitting but mostly presents human-interest stories from the comfort of a studio. Every evening, Lily gets to return to her designer Boston home to spend time with her daughter, Rowen, the center of her single-mom existence. Some of Lily’s stories, the juicer ones, are fed to the journalist and her behind-the-scenes right-hand, Greer, by a man calling himself Mr. Smith. They’re sure it’s a pseudonym, but are content to idly wonder about Smith’s identity and motives as long as the tips keep coming. Then he starts getting sinister—at least, Lily thinks it’s Smith who’s behind anonymous flower deliveries to her home, though she’s never given him her address. He also seems overly familiar with events at her daughter’s school. Lily is afraid that he may reveal private details that could finish her career, but she soon has far more to fear. An author’s note reveals that Ryan wrote this during COVID, and the feeling of being trapped and at the same time wanting to hide away permeates the novel. The surprises keep coming, and the tightly woven storytelling closes with a deft, satisfying twist. Fans of the author should add this to their library hold lists as it’s not going to sit on shelves. While waiting, they can try Belinda Bauer’s The Beautiful Dead, which also features a journalist in peril.

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