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Archive for the ‘Mystery’ Category

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Martin Limon’s U.S. Army Investigators Sergeants George Sueno and Ernie Bascom return for their eighth appearance in Mr.Kill. This time out, the two American investigators are joined by a Korean investigator aptly named Kill.

The basic plot seems to be an ever too often occurring story in the news -a Korean mother is brutally raped on a Korean train and an American soldier is most probably the culprit. George and Ernie are called upon to investigate but are hampered by the “it couldn’t possibly be one of our boys who did this,” sentiment. The Koreans want justice and they want it now. The longer the investigation drags on, the angrier Korean citizens become and the more heated the anti-American fever runs. But aside from the sort of “ripped from the headlines” plot thread, there are a couple other threads to the plot that make it interesting as things start to come together. Of course if there are soldiers there bound to be women in the mix. That role is filled by an all female country western band who want to entertain the troops with more than their voices. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Teri Davis

When you are a police constable in the Highland in Scotland, the community expects you to be at their beckoned call and expect you to be knowledgeable of all crimes, no matter how minor. This includes investigations of fairies, whether real or not, and all superstitions. This is the problem of Hamish Macbeth in Death of a Kingfisher.

In Braikie, Scotland, this small village has discovered that they can draw people to their community by turning the local forested area, Buchan’s Woods, into a tourist attraction. This area is a habitat for a family of kingfishers and the fairies. Noticing the success of this attraction, the area is renamed “The Fairy Glen” and the tourism greatly benefits the town.

Everything changes when a kingfisher is found murdered and strung up in a tree. With further investigation, this family of birds has also been poisoned. Why would anyone kill a bird and its family?

While investigating this death of a bird family, Hamish becomes entwined with the married director of the woods who seems to be able to bewitch him with her physical beauty and her blue eyes. Is this affecting his investigation and not allowing him to suspect her as a possible suspect? Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Following his debut Frozen Assets which author Bates introduced readers to Sergeant Gunnhildur Gísladóttir known as Gunna, Bates brings Gunna back in Cold Comfort. Now promoted to the Serious Crimes Unit in Reykjavik, she has left rural Iceland behind and moved into the city.

The two crimes which are the focus of Gunna’s investigations involve a criminal who escapes from prison and goes on a crime spree across the area settling up with those who have crossed him in the past. Closer to home, she tries to find the killer of a former beauty queen turned television personality who was also fitness instructor. Gunna ‘s investigations lead her to connections between these two people from the opposite ends of society.

The author has used the financial disarray of Iceland quite successfully in the plotting of this book. Money is power and power is so often the root of crime, and so it is in Cold Comfort.
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Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

In A Darkly Hidden Truth, Author Crow brings back protagonists Felicity and Anthony first introduced in A Very Private Grave. The protagonists are a couple of the most interesting characters to come along in the mystery genre for some time. Felicity, an American who came to England to teach, finds she is disillusioned with the classroom, but rather than returning home to Idaho, she decides to follow one of her passions and enrolls in the theological college run by the Community of the Transfiguration. Anthony, actually Father Anthony, is in residence at the same community well on his way to becoming a priest in The Church of England.

As Book Two of the Monastery Murders opens, Felicity is arranging retreats at several other religious communities while she ponders her future in the church. When a valuable icon goes missing, and the crime resembles another in a different monastery, Father Anthony is asked to investigate. Since he and Felicity solved the murder of Father Dominic in the first book, Father Anthony wants Felicity’s help again. Although initially, Felicity does not want to change her plans, eventually she is drawn into the case. Complicating Felicity’s life even more, her mother arrives from America with very little notice and a great deal of distressing news to share. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

No Mark Upon Her is the fourteenth book in the Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid series by Crombie. In my opinion, it is one of the best. The two protagonists have grown as the series has continued and this entry finds them settling into their married bliss with their respective sons, foster daughter and their two dogs. Their foster daughter Charlotte, is still adjusting to the loss of her parents causing first Gemma and then Duncan to plan family leave time to be with her. But being on leave does not keep Gemma from becoming involved when Kincaid is drawn into a case involving a Met Detective who happens to also have been an extremely good rower.

Rebecca Meredith was an A-type personality if ever there was one. She was a person driven in all aspects of her life. Plagued by memories of the Olympics she missed, she has decided to try again, even if it means giving up her job on the force in order to train. She took her shell out for a practice run late one afternoon, and never returned. The next morning, both her former husband and the coach of the Rowing Club sound the alarm. When her body is recovered, it soon becomes clear that Becca had been murdered.

Was Becca killed by a fellow rower to keep her out of the competition? Was her ex-husband regretting the generous divorce settlement? Or had she crossed someone in her job? As James and Kincaid get to know more about the victim, the possible suspect list grows to include one of their own. And if someone in the police is involved, who all was covering it up? Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Teri Davis

What do you do when your job causes the death of your wife and child? How do you go on?

Tell Lyon left the Border Patrol to start over as head of the police in New Austin, Ohio. Hoping that the problems of the past never reappear, heading a small law enforcement force might just be what he needs.

One of his first duties is to meet with the sheriffs of the two neighboring areas, Sheriff Able Hawk from Horton County and Walt Pierce from Vale County. He quickly realizes that there will be territorial and overlapping boundaries between these close-in proximity areas. Also, he quickly concludes that both have a completely opposite approach to law enforcement.

The problem of immigration, both legal and illegal, is the focus point for each of these three law enforcement leaders. How the three of them approach this realistic problem is visibly apparent in El Gavilan.

El Gavilan, which means hawk in Spanish in the nickname given to the highly opinionated Sheriff Hawk. This man assists the legal immigrants in numerous ways within the community but has no patience for the illegals. With introducing Tell into the community, he discovers a kindred spirit which assists in developing their respect and mutual friendship. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Joanne Reynolds

Detective McLusky is a disgruntled DI in Bristol, England. He is single, doesn’t eat right, smokes, etc. The police station he works at is rather small and so is his office. He really is not the happiest of men.

There is a murder of an individual who is found in Leigh Woods. The victim is partly buried and stoned to death. The murder victim is a drug addict and so we are being lead to believe this is a deal gone bad.

Within days, there are many drug-related deaths that are not as easily explained. It seems as if the addicts died by ingesting heroin that has been laced with anthrax.

After this, the death toll keeps going up with victims being drugged to death and then others that are found in the woods having been brutally killed with stones. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

O’Connell has brought her star protagonist, Kathy Mallory back for her eleventh appearance in The Chalk Girl. While through the book readers will see some cracks in the icy cold persona of Mallory, the book in some ways is the most disturbing of the series-especially if the reader is squeamish about rats.

As The Chalk Girl opens, an effort to rid one area of Central Park of rats has backfired and the normally nocturnal, people-shy creatures are out in force in the daylight and amped up on chemicals that were meant to kill them. The chemicals have also made the rats both vicious and supercharged so that they are now actively attacking people and climbing trees. When a camp director from New Jersey suffers a heart attack at the sight of all the rats, her campers scatter. A cleaning lady making her way across the park has been watching the group as well as a small elflike redheaded child playing nearby. When the police are sent to round up the children, she insists they need to look for the little girl as well.

That little girl, who turns out to be somewhat of an expert on rats, is also found to be a kidnap victim from Chicago. It is through this small girl that readers see a side of Mallory not seen before. The child suffers from Williams Disease, a condition which leaves her vulnerable to all sorts of danger as she seeks affection for people. The person she has latched onto is Mallory. Mallory’s friend Charles Butler takes a special interest in the little girl and having known Mallory for years, is concerned about the child’s need for contact with Mallory. Because the child may have witnessed a horrible crime, Mallory is afraid that she is possibly in danger from the killer. Both Mallory and Charles set out to protect her at any cost but they each question the other’s reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Paricia Reid

In vitro fertilization is a common occurrence now but in 1975, the subject was very controversial. Dr. Colin Sanford, an obstetrician in Emerald, Washington, is determined to be the first doctor to produce a baby by this method. He has recruited Dr. Giselle Hearn, a laboratory geneticist-embryologist to work with him. Because of Hearn’s department chair, their work must remain a secret. Joyce Kennett, a patient of Dr. Sanford, is determined to have a baby. With the help of Sanford and Hearn, Kennett gives birth to a healthy baby boy.

Dr. Sanford has assured Kennett that when he is in a position to make a public announcement about the baby’s birth, there will be no end to the publicity and Kennett will gain financially through the publicity.

However, before any announcement can be made, James Kennett, Joyce’s husband and the baby’s father, goes on a shooting spree, kills Dr. Hearn, and then kills himself. This is where Detective Ernie Baumgartner steps in and determines to discover what motivated James Kennett to murder a doctor and then commit suicide. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Douglas R. Cobb

Ella Clah mystery fans, rejoice! The 17th novel in writing duo Aimee and David Thurlo’s series featuring Tribal Police Investigator Ella Clah, Black Thunder, is now available in your local brick & mortar bookstores and through this web site. I loved reading the 16th book, Never-Ending-Snake, the first one I’d read in the series, and Black Thunder is also an excellent, page-turning and suspenseful read.

Life on the Rez (as the authors term the New Mexico Navajo Indian Reservation where the Ella Clah series is set) is different, with its own atmosphere and its own political and religious rules. There are the views of the Traditionalists, the New Traditionalists, and the Modernists, and the authors show great sensitivity and respect to each of these groups and their diverse beliefs in their novels. Their intimate knowledge of the ways of life, culture, and mores of the Navajos shows in their writing, and makes their mystery series a unique reading experience.

When a construction crew worker hits something solid with his shovel and digs a bit deeper, he is shocked to discover a human hand, connected to the body of a murdered man. The man has been shot twice in the back of his head, execution style. Ella Clah and her partner Justine Goodluck secure the crime scene and lead the investigation under the hot summer sun, discovering eventually the graves of two more men and one woman. As in some of the other Ella Clah novels, who has jurisdiction comes into play as a part of the plot, as one of the bodies is found just across the border of the Rez, making that homicide fall under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Department of San Juan County.
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