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Debut

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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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Review

The Tumbling Girl

by Henrietta Thornton

In the acknowledgments to this immersive debut, Walsh explains that she took a novel-writing course partly to convince herself not to write this series opener; readers will be happy that she went ahead anyway. Walsh drops us deep into the world of Minnie Ward, who writes music for Victorian London’s Variety Palace Music Hall. The shabby venue hosts a plate spinner whose dressing room sounds like breaking crockery and sobs, a soprano who only sometimes hits a note, a wayward monkey that likes to have its way with the ventriloquist’s dummy, and other downmarket wonders. When kindly detective Albert Easterbrook is hired to find the killer of a young woman who worked at the Palace, it brings him into Minnie’s world. She’s not content to sit on the sidelines of the investigation—she knows far more than Albert does about the workings of her realm, not to mention that those he needs to question aren’t going to open themselves up to a “toff.” While working through his exasperation with headstrong Minnie, Albert begins to fall for her, a situation she rebuffs as it will never work out—class divides loom large here. Their sometimes-parallel, sometimes-together work exposes both to dangers and horrors that will keep readers rapt; a side plot involving a serial killer who is terrorizing London closes the book and creates an opening for a sequel, which readers will eagerly await.

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Review

The Dinner Party

by Dodie Ownes

It doesn’t take long for van de Sandt’s plot and writing to grip readers’ attention in this debut. Two timelines interweave around the circumstances of a single dinner party, set to celebrate the launch of Franca’s fiancé, Andrew’s, latest project, a canon of sorts inspired by time capsules. Franca once aspired to have a career, but it is clear that Andrew prefers a more domestic arrangement for her. Her father died while she was quite young, and her mother is distant, so her life with Andrew feels safe, initially. In his discussion with Franca over what should be served at the dinner party, Andrew throws off a mean vibe, even insisting that Franca get fresh rabbit to prepare, despite knowing she is a vegetarian. Kitchen disasters up the tension, and when one unexpected guest arrives, a friend of hers from Utrecht, the wrenching details of Franca’s relationship with Andrew are slowly revealed as the timeline shifts forward and back. Claustrophobic and thrilling at the same time, the book allows readers to follow Franca’s unwinding as she seeks revenge against the man who says he loves her, when he just wants to own her, body and soul. Readers will feel every bit of Franca’s female rage as she attempts to extricate herself from her untenable situation. At a time when “tradwife” movements are on the rise, which prioritize homemaking and caring for the husband, trusting him to provide and protect, this story is particularly relevant.

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Review

Simultaneous

by Jeff Ayers

Therapist Sarah Newcomb can’t get her fiancé to commit to a wedding date. Still, doubts about their relationship take a back seat when one of her clients reveals evidence of a potential copycat killer. Newcomb uses past-life regression to help her clients overcome trauma, but this patient unveils a time in the future, and this part of their divided soul works as a homicide detective. Trying to prove her client is making up material, she learns from that split soul of a natural gas explosion that will kill seven people in New Mexico the next day. The following morning, federal agent Grant Lukather from Homeland Security visits a site in New Mexico where seven people died in a natural gas explosion. He learns of a 911 call that came in the day before, warning of the blast. Tracing the phone number puts him in Sarah’s office. The twists and turns that follow are wild and completely unpredictable, and the story only gets better as it becomes increasingly complex. Heisserer received an Oscar nomination for screenwriting for the film Arrival, and he delivers the cinematic scope and intensity of a novel-writing pro. And the ending! It’s hard to believe this is his first novel, and readers will eagerly want more.

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Review

Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

by Dodie Ownes

When Vivienne, an admittedly dowdy and somewhat bitter middle-aged magazine editor, receives a mysterious invitation to a dinner party, she almost throws it away. Reconsidering, she goes to the elusive address to find Serendipity, which appears to be a pop-up fine dining experience. None of the other six guests has any relation to her, or one another, it seems. Readers get to know them through their actions and words, and it would be easy to start guessing what is to come, but the highlight of the dinner is when each finds an envelope at his or her place setting. Janet, the most spontaneous (and likely most drunk) of the guests, tears hers open to find a card that states You will die age 44, and she is just weeks from her 45th birthday. Fear, accusations, and incredulity sweep across the group, and then, dismissing it as a publicity stunt, they depart. But then the words on the cards start coming true. As the guests tell their stories and admit to their sins, readers see Vivienne emerge as a caring and clever amateur sleuth who finally has a family to protect. A terrific addition to the current trend of If you knew you were going to die, how would you live your life? novels.

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Review

How to Talk to Your Dog About Murder

by Jeff Ayers

Nikki Jackson-Ramanathan and her husband, Jai, live in a tiny apartment and get by on his job as a coach for a collegiate mock-trial team and her role as a dog walker and pet behaviorist. She’s asked by rich widow Ruth Van Meer to learn why her dog, Reginald, seems to be less energetic than usual. The rest of the Van Meer family appears petty and vindictive and question why Nikki was hired in the first place. Nikki begins to spend quality time with Reginald, taking him on walks every day, while the family continues to resent her presence. When Mrs. Van Meer is discovered deceased in her bed, the family begins pointing fingers at Nikki after it’s learned that the dead widow left a sizeable amount of money to Nikki to continue caring for Reginald. With the police’s dogged determination to prove Nikki’s guilt, and the eccentric family keeping her on a tight leash, she can’t let sleeping dogs lie and has to solve the murder herself. This engaging cast of quirky characters launches a terrific story that is hopefully the beginning of a series. Readers will also be wondering if Reginald is available to adopt.

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Review

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder

by Willy Williams

“The Ayyars dipped into our lives like a tea bag into the whiteness of a porcelain cup. They muddied the water and made our house feel small….” In the summer of 1986, tween narrator Georgie Ayyar Creel; her sister, Agatha Krishna; and their amma (mother) welcome newly arrived relatives from India to their cramped home in rural Wyoming. Moving into Agatha Krishna’s bedroom are Vinny Uncle, Amma’s beloved but useless younger brother, whom she has not seen in 14 years since marrying geologist Richard Creel; Auntie Devi, Vinny’s bossy wife; and their son, Narayan. Tensions quickly arise, and so does the sexual abuse when their uncle targets Agatha and then Georgie: “Vinny Uncle made us shadow people.” Forced into silence by their abuser, the sisters decide he must die. The accidental death of a cat provides the murder weapon and sets the siblings’ deadly plot into motion. This highly original debut novel by the author of the award-winning short story collection Cowboys and East Indians is a darkly funny coming-of-age tale with a touch of murder and a haunting twist. Celebrating girlhood and sisterhood in the 1980s, it’s also a touching portrait of Indian-American teens, caught between cultures, in the American West.

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