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Mystery & Detective

Review

Fifty-Four Pigs

by Brian Kenney

Tired of mysteries set in Paris and Los Angeles, southern Italy and Glasgow? Then head to rural Manitoba in the depth of winter for a meet-up with Dr. Peter Bannerman, veterinarian extraordinaire. We join Peter as he is off to make a house call, when he notices smoke in the distance and realizes it’s coming from his buddy Tom’s pig farm. He arrives too late to save the pigs, while Tom is nowhere to be found. An eccentric, introverted geek, Peter loves nothing more than spending a quiet evening with his equally geeked-out wife Laura, as she knits Star Wars-themed sweaters to sell on Etsy. But Peter has a secret side: a fascination for solving crimes, putting his highly logical mind to good use. Yet as another murder and more crimes follow, Peter finds himself in a place where his reasoning skills can no longer save him, and his judgement of others turns out to be terribly flawed. This book takes a risk with a large amount of backstory—about Peter’s life and the history of the town—but it works because both are so compelling and it is clear that Schott is setting us up for what could be a most satisfying series. Bring on book two!

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Review

The Murder Rule

by Brian Kenney

This standalone novel, a break from McTiernan’s Cormac Reilly series, is proof of the extraordinary depth and breadth she possesses as a writer. Hannah, a third year law student at the University of Maine, manages to bulldoze her way into spending a semester at the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project, a true-to-life initiative that seeks exoneration for wrongfully convicted people in Virginia. She leaves behind her mother—a fragile alcoholic—as she attempts to thwart one of the Project’s high profile cases: the release of Michael Dandridge, who’s serving life imprisonment for rape and murder. Why does Hannah care? The secret lies in her mother’s 1994 diary, passages of which are interspersed throughout the present-day narrative. Hannah’s efforts to sabotage the case—and the shocking facts she unearths in the process—are the stuff of a classic thriller. But the emotional connections forged throughout the book give it added meaning. For a writer who has seemingly never lived in the United States, the locations, diction, and class signifiers are flawless. This novel can appeal to a wide range of readers, from suspense seekers to fans of legal thrillers to those who just want, as the British say, a cracking great read.

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Review

The Blue Diamond

by Henrietta Thornton

221b Baker St. is home to a new generation, with Sherlock Holmes’s daughter, Joanna, and her husband, Dr. John Watson Jr., son of Sherlock’s longtime sidekick, in residence and solving crimes. In this sixth in the series, Joanna, who’s just as meticulous and insightful as her father, is called by Scotland Yard to help with a series of thefts in hotels around London. Joanna wonders why she and the Yard are required until she learns that the victim of the most recent crime is the governor general of South Africa, and what was stolen from his locked room was the enormously valuable blue diamond, the search for which sets the Watsons questioning everyone from diamond merchants to underworld dealers. In addition, it’s 1917, and the detectives must pursue another stolen item, one that’s crucial to the British effort to win the Great War. This part of the plot sees the famous offspring draw on every ounce of their courage as well as their connections with Sherlock’s Baker St. Irregulars, a gang of ruffian children, to win the day. Along the way, readers will enjoy the many references to Sherlock Holmes’s cases, often the subject of reminiscences by his daughter and her father-in-law; also a pleasure is the relationship between Joanna and John, she a wily sleuth and he an adoring supporter of her eccentricities. For fans of the great detective, of course, but also those who enjoy tales of wartime espionage.

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Review

The Drowning Sea

by Henrietta Thornton

Taylor, Sarah Stewart. The Drowning Sea (Maggie D’arcy Mysteries #3). June 2022. 352p. Minotaur.
I tiptoe warily toward books set in my home country, Ireland, fearing they’ll be all priests and mist, but Taylor mines a thoroughly modern Ireland for her thoughtful tale. The setting is West Cork, long a bohemian area that attracts foreigners who like a slower way of life. Taylor shows it being overtaken by the ultra-rich while the local bad boy made good, who owns everything from the gastropub to the manor house, is building a hotel that has locals staging protests and sabotaging construction. The beauty of the area is already working against it, then, when a body washes up on the beach. He’s a member of the area’s Polish community, one of the young people who ease the lives of the rich but struggle themselves, and his death begins to scrape away the veneer of niceness on the town’s past and present. Women steer this story, starting with the series’ star, Maggie D’arcy, a Long Island police officer who’s visiting Ireland but may stay with her new boyfriend and their respective children. There is also a young Polish officer who reluctantly lets Maggie into some aspects of the investigation and an artist whose nebulous memories of a possible past crime seem related to the present-day violence. Tana French fans will love this intricate, relationship-fueled crime story and its strong women characters.

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Review

Fadeout

by Brian Kenney

First published 50 years ago, Fadeout introduced David Brandstetter, a ground-breaking detective—he works as an insurance claims investigator—who is openly and unapologetically gay. This was at a time, as Michael Nava reminds us in his introduction, when “49 out of 50 states criminalized gay sex between consenting adults and the American Psychiatric Association deemed homosexuality a mental disorder.” One of the great contributors to California noir, Hansen went on to redefine the private eye through 11 more Brandstetter novels (all being republished in print and as ebooks by Syndicate Books), stretching from 1965 and the rising counterculture to the late ‘80s and AIDS. Throughout, Brandstetter regularly touched on hypocrisy and homophobia, while managing to attract the largest readership queer crime fiction had ever received. Fadeout focuses on the disappearance of Fox Olson, a country singer and radio star whose car was driven off a bridge during a storm and the body never found. Brandstetter doesn’t buy it. In prose so lean and evocative you want to stop and read it aloud, we follow Brandstetter as he goes deep into Olson’s life as well as his own, each achingly sad in its own way.

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Review

And By Fire

by Henrietta Thornton

As it destroys, fire creates mysteries in Hawtrey’s past and present-day London. The Great Fire in 1666 is the fulcrum of the historical story. Before the devastation, we find Christopher Wren politicking as he seeks to build his dream dome at St. Paul’s Cathedral, while stingier planners want to continue the never-ending repairs to the existing roof. Initially outsiders to any drama, courtier to the queen Margaret Dove and Etienne Belland, Margaret’s forbidden love (he is both a foreigner and, as the king’s fireworks maker, a lowly tradesman), find themselves drawn into the fray. When their friend is killed in St. Paul’s during the fire, there may have been more to it than met the eye, and the two continue their romance while looking into what really happened. In the modern city, Nigella Parker and Colm O’Leary are police officers assigned to investigate what becomes a deadly series of fires, by an arsonist who arranges both burned wooden bodies and then real charred victims in poses that seem to mock churches. Like Margaret and Etienne, these two shouldn’t be together—they tried it once and nope—and like their 1666 counterparts, they must fight what appearances seem to dictate and what their instincts tell them to be true. Adding to the atmospheric, absorbing mystery is the depth of research Hawtrey has obviously done on both the Great Fire and St. Paul’s and its famous creator. Try this alongside Robert J. Lloyd’s The Bloodless Boy, which also recreates 17th-century London.

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Review

Miss Aldridge Regrets

by Brian Kenney

We’re in 1936 London and Lena Aldridge has had her share of troubles. Alfie, her beloved father and only parent, has recently died. Alfie was a gifted musician, and Lena has followed in his footsteps, eking out a living as a nightclub singer. Until a gig in a worn down Soho nightclub, when her best friend’s husband, also the club owner, is poisoned and dies right in front of her. Time to get out of town! Fortuitously, Lena has been approached by a stranger, who claims to represent an old friend of Alfie’s, with a remarkable offer: come to New York and headline in a Broadway musical. With nothing to lose, days later Lena’s traveling first class on the Queen Mary. But she hasn’t left all her troubles behind. As a mixed-race woman (Alfie was African American, unknown Mom was white) who passes as white, Lena is anxious about her reception in the U.S., and when there’s another murder on the boat that’s all too similar to the nightclub homicide, her anxiety really ramps up. Hare does a wonderful job of depicting the era, including the big themes—like the rise of Nazism and the pervasiveness of institutionalized racism—as well as the small details, like Lena’s wardrobe. And in Lena, she has created a compelling and empathetic hero whom I would love to follow as she disembarks in NYC. Readers of female-led, historical mysteries from Rhys Bowen, Victoria Thompson, and Mariah Fredericks will be pleased to meet Lena Aldridge.

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Review

Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride

by Brian Kenney

What the world needs now is more of the delightful Nonna Maria, an elderly widow who’s lived her whole life on the beautiful island of Ischia—18 miles from Naples—and is a bit of a legend. As famous for the espresso she brews as the advice she dispenses, she’s known throughout the island and, in turn, seems to know every native. When trouble comes calling, it’s Nonna Maria people turn to for help, trusting her instead of the local carabinieri. More of a “fixer” than your traditional detective, Nonna Maria takes on two cases in this book. In one, a young woman is worried that her fiancée isn’t what he seems, and Nonna Maria discretely moves her into hiding while she investigates. In the other, the old captain of a tour boat—and life-long friend of our investigator —is found dead, and Nonna Maria won’t accept that the death of this born sailor was an accident. To fix these problems, the intrepid widow calls on old friends, her parish priest, a nephew, a grandson, and even the head of a Neapolitan crime family, all while sharing with readers the delights of Ischia. Never too cutesy and plenty tough, Nonna Maria will delight fans of Italian mysteries and cozy enthusiasts who love a good armchair trip.

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Review

Long Gone

by Henrietta Thornton

Annalisa Vega is back in the second of Schaffhausen’s series, looking at the inner life of a troubled Chicago PD detective. In the first book, Gone for Good, Annalisa pursued the killer of a family friend, ultimately finding uncomfortable truths far too close to home. (No spoilers!—you don’t have to read the first book to enjoy this one, but it’s well worth the read while you wait for book 2). Now, the detective is still partnered at work with her ex-husband-with-benefits, Nick, and doing her own sort of time as other cops give her the cold shoulder for fighting against crookedness within the force. The book opens with a headscratcher for Annalisa and Nick. Not only is a successful officer (who has perhaps too nice a home and car for his salary) shot dead in his bed while his wife is untouched, she claims that the killer was “a frogman,” a murderer wearing a scuba-diving suit. What follows is a look at Annalisa’s life as someone who can’t let things go—bad enough when it’s Nick, much worse when she’s ordered off cases and still won’t stop. Schaffhausen again weaves family dynamics, terrible decisions, and long-festering secrets with love and bitter regret to create a riveting story. The delightfully exasperating main character and cast are a bonus.

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Review

It Dies with You

by Brian Kenney

A straightforward mystery that is brought to life by three wonderful characters. Thirty-something Hudson Miller is down on his luck. His boxing career is over, he’s working as a bouncer, and he’s couch surfing with friends. To make matters worse, Hudson’s estranged father is murdered, shot in the back of the head while sitting at his desk at his salvage yard in deeply rural Flint Creek, North Carolina. To Hudson’s surprise, he inherits the business, and—with no other options apparent—goes home to run Miller’s Pull-a-Part. He also takes on the job of finding his father’s murderer, helped out by Charlie Shoaf, a Vietnam vet who more or less comes with the salvage shop. When a corpse is found in the trunk of a salvaged vehicle, and a cache of firearms is discovered as well, Hudson realizes that his father’s life was a whole lot different than it appeared. Add to the mix the self-assured, brilliant teenager Lucy Reyes—who is seeking answers to her own family tragedy—and you’ve got a great threesome. I have no idea of the author’s intent, but I’d love to hear more from Hudson, Charlie, and Lucy—their chemistry is dynamite. Fans of the TV series Ozark will love this book.

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