Khan’s latest features extremes: fast moments of violence and the long years of condemnation and recriminations that follow, and found families—good and evil—in contrast with those we’re born into. Blackwater Falls, CO, Community Response Officer Inaya Rahman is facing a ghost from her Chicago PD past: John Broda, an officer who badly beat her. Now he wants a favor. Broda’s son, another officer, is accused of shooting an innocent young man, and Broda knows that Inaya is both smart and caring enough to find out the truth. In return, he’ll give her a recording she’s long wanted of another officer implicating himself in a racist crime. It’s not Rahman’s case, and she clashes with her boss, Qas Seif. Inaya and Qas’s feelings for each other, and the family ties that are a highlight here, only complicate matters. Further difficulties are added by a parallel crime, this time one Inaya is officially working on: a white officer who’s near retirement shoots a young Black man, and the community is seething. Khan excels in creating multifaceted characters whose engrossing stories bring up social questions to which there are no easy answers. As in the best crime fiction, the solution here is both satisfying and unexpected.
Women Sleuths
A newspaper retrospective of an unsolved killing spree brings back more than memories in Dugoni’s latest thriller. The Route 99 serial killer seemed to stop almost three decades ago, but why? The upcoming article reflecting on the murders has Tracy Crosswhite investigating the cold case with Johnny Nolasco, her superior, whom she does not get along with. He ran the original task force, and failing to deliver a suspect still haunts him. The two must overcome their differences to see if they can find justice and bring closure to the victims’ families. The clues lead to the horrific possibility that renewed exposure will cause the killer to strike again. Though this is the 10th Tracy Crosswhite, newcomers will savor the story, while Dugoni fans will love how he ties up several storylines from earlier novels. Few authors deliver consistently stellar crime fiction, and Dugoni is one of those writers. Michael Connelly fans should have this series on their reading pile.
This first in a series, set in Italy’s magical Positano—that’s the much-photographed town on the Amalfi coast that’s clinging to a mountainside—promises plenty and delivers even more. Bria Bartolucci is a young widow intent on fulfilling her late husband’s dream of opening a B&B in Positano. And with help from her eight-year-old son, Marco; her best friend, Rosalie; sister; parents; Giovanni the handsome handyman; Bravo the dog; a nun; and several more characters, it looks like Bella Bella will open on schedule. Until a bloody corpse—oh mio dio!—is found spread out on a bed in a guest bedroom. But Bria is going to need more than God’s help to solve this mystery and restore her reputation, especially with her misfortune the lead story on the Positano gossip circuit. How will Bella Bella survive? There’s so much to love in this series’ premier. For starters, there’s the huge and hilarious cast of characters, each so unique—from clothes to personality—that there’s no chance of confusion. Add to that a series of capers that place Bria and her BFF, Rosalie, in increasingly risky situations. And Falco’s peppering of the book with Italian—don’t worry, you’ll be able to figure it out—goes far to give it a feeling of authenticity. Finally, we go beyond the tourists and learn more about the unique and beguiling town that is Positano. For fans of Lorenzo Carcaterra.
Sometimes it’s the setting that grabs you. Often it’s the plot. But here it is two fabulous characters who come together and through sharp dialogue create a story that both cozy and traditional-mystery readers will love. Former Senator Dorothy Gibson—pant-suit loving, wise-cracking, and wine-imbibing—has just weeks ago lost a run for the presidency to that man, and she’s retired to her northern White House on the Maine coast to lick her wounds and begin work on her memoirs. Her ghostwriter, new on the job, is summoned to Maine; Dorothy’s not one to sit idle. It’s quite a fun hothouse with Dorothy’s gay son hanging around, a ten-out-of-ten bodyguard lurking in the corridor, a Huma Abedin clone who tries to keep everyone on track—and the ghostwriter describing it all in delicious detail. All’s well until there’s a death at a neighboring estate and Dorothy and the ghostwriter, refusing to believe it’s an accident, quickly launch their own investigation. The denouement is quite wordy, but full of the requisite number of surprises. The idea of a ghostwriter as the narrator, who pairs up with different celebrities to solve crimes, is a darn good one.
Yew’s first book in this series creates a perfect launch point for the adventures of bookseller Scarlett Gardner and her world of nosy tourists; endearing friends; and a former boyfriend, Connor, who embodies the word jerk. She moves to the beachfront town of Oceanside, CA, to open a bookstore with Connor, but he leaves her in the lurch soon after opening. She finds friendship with Evelyn, who helps her run the store. One morning, Scarlett finds a woman’s body on the beach near the store. When the police learn that not only was the woman in the store the night before but also that she left Scarlett a vast inheritance, the bookseller becomes a prime suspect. Scarlett has no idea why she is receiving this enormous sum of money, and suddenly everybody wants to meet the “murderous bookseller.” Yew has the goods to craft a compelling story full of everything cozy fans expect, including the red herrings, sketchy suspects, and motivation to have Scarlett investigate the case herself to prove her innocence. Under the name Holly Yew, the author launched another mystery series, The Rose Shore Mysteries, featuring an art curator. Under any name, Yew has a bright future in the cozy world.
After a stint as an advertising executive in New York City, Mallory is back in Wingate, Connecticut, where she has taken over her recently deceased aunt’s Cookie Shop. Finally, a long-held dream fulfilled. Except Mallory’s staff of two can’t stop rankling each other, her boyfriend is seen in a compromising situation with another woman, and food blogger Beatrice Wright, aka Queen Bea, is accusing her of stealing a recipe. Then Beatrice is discovered dead, lying on her kitchen floor, her body outlined by flour. And who might have discovered the body? Our heroine, Mallory–who had stopped by Beatrice’s house to make cookie peace. While this novel uses many of the tropes of cozy fiction, there’s a wonderful freshness about Mallory, who can’t wait to let others solve the murder, and confronts all likely suspects herself, in a direct and unvarnished manner. The first in a series that many cozy readers will love. One request: it’s time for Kip, Mallory’s BFF and fellow baker, to come out. Everyone seems to have a love life, while he’s left at home making spaghetti for Mallory and loading up the Netflix. Sad.
I eagerly await the books in the Odessa Jones series, and the latest offering is better than ever. Odessa (Dessa) is a realtor/caterer in suburban New Jersey. Life is going well—housing sales are way up—until one of her realtor colleagues, Anna Lee, is killed in a hit and run while out jogging. Could it have been murder? Dessa can’t help but become involved. She goes deep into her colleague’s life, uncovering a surprising past and a present in which Anna was being stalked. But why would anyone threaten this young woman? In a brilliant move on the author’s part, Dessa ends up discovering her connection to Anna, one that extends back decades to Dessa’s first fiancé, when she was barely in her twenties. Part of the delight of this series, which is set in a diverse community, is the recurring characters, from Dessa’s family-like colleagues to restaurateur Lennox Royal—a possible love interest?—to Aunt Phoenix. Dessa’s second sight—she sometimes has the ability to see aura-like glimmers over people, among other paranormal skills—is a gift she has along with her aunts. It’s introduced deftly in the book, and even skeptics will find the protagonist’s gift wholly credible–at least while they’re wrapped up in the plot. This is billed as a cozy—there is a cat and plenty of tea—but Wesley pushes a bit beyond the genre’s traditions. Dive in with this volume, but if you have the time, start with volume one, A Glimmer of Death. You won’t be disappointed.
True confession: I can’t sew. Not to even to hem a pair of pants. But that hardly stopped me from enjoying Seams Deadly. After discovering her teaching assistant in bed with her boorish, snobbish husband—cheap, too, if he won’t rent a hotel room—middle-school teacher Lydia Barnes ups and moves from Atlanta to the mountain town of Peridot, Georgia. It’s very Mayberry RFD, with friendships and gossip galore. Lydia connects with her fellow sewists—in fact, she gets a job at the Measure Twice fabric store—and before you can say “zigzag stitch,” she’s set up on a date with her handsome neighbor and the town’s bookseller, Brandon Ivey. It’s one weird date, and Lydia’s comedic voice comes to the fore as she narrates the evening. But weird only gets weirder as later that night, she comes across Brandon dead as can be, with a pair of dress shears lodged deep into his neck. Ouch! Newcomer Lydia is the police’s number one suspect, and when another body is found, the cops are ready to lock her up. Lydia turns to the sewists to help get her out of this mess. If only it were that simple. Special mention goes to Baby Lobster, Lydia’s cat, for valor extraordinaire.
Devil-may-care heiress Ruby Vaughn has just sent the latest of her boss’s housekeepers running, with the woman on the way out muttering something about “a den of sin and vice.” Ruby does like to knock back a few drinks and scarcely cares about propriety, having planned, while a nurse during the Great War, to set up home with her fellow nurse and lover, Tamsyn. When that antiquarian-bookseller boss announces, “I’ve been thinking,” Ruby knows it doesn’t usually bode well, but this time there’s an upside. The trip he wants her to undertake, delivering mysterious books to a Ruan Kivell in Cornwall, brings her back in contact with Tamsyn, now Lady Chenoweth. Penryth Hall, Tamsyn’s miserable home with her abusive husband, only makes Ruby long all the more for the life she could have had with Tamsyn. When awful Lord Chenoweth is found dead, his body slashed as though by animals, the area’s depths of superstition and past misdeeds begin to reveal themselves, as do the powers of Ruan, the local Pellar, a powerful folk healer. Ruby refuses to believe in the curse that the locals say Chenoweth perished from, pursuing instead the help of the fledgling science of forensics to figure out what happened and restore Tamsyn’s happiness. This debut won the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur First Crime Novel Competition, a well-deserved honor for a book whose gutsy main character and immersive world-building will remind readers of Margaret Dove in Evie Hawtrey’s And By Fire.
First things first: Quigley’s sophomore effort is every bit as witty, character-driven, and well-plotted as last year’s Six Feet Deep Dish. As always, Geneva Bay, Wisconsin chef and pizzeria owner Delilah O’Leary has a few too many things going on. She’s hoping to win the “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest, but can’t quite get the recipe exactly right. Her BFF and sous chef, Sonya, is having an affair with none other than the wife of a celebrity chef. And as luck would have it, he’s the judge for the competition. Bad timing! Meanwhile, her pit bull of a great-aunt is suddenly throwing a lot of shade her way. With no explanations. Even Butterball, the cat she shares with her ex-fiancé, wants out. But when visiting the new juice bar—owned by her ex’s annoying girlfriend—she witnesses one of the customers keel over, likely dead from a poisoned smoothie. And before you can say Pretzel Crust Deep-Dish Bratwurst Pizza, Delilah is drawn into some very risky goings-on. The satire is a joy, Delilah’s narration is sheer pleasure, and her restaurant crew provides plenty of balance. This is turning out to be one of the best new cozy series going.