Tag: Mystery

Clever five-star suspense

From the first page to the last, award winning author Maggie Smith delivers a clever, five-star suspense thriller in Blind Spot.

The tantalizing first chapter finds Assistant District Attorney Rachel Matthews, in court for the defense, in the most important criminal case of her career. Having always prided herself on the fact that she could read people, now she’s never been so wrong. Who can she trust?

Raising a teenage daughter as a single mom is never easy. With old family secrets, office politics, a stalker, not to mention a murder to solve, juggling takes on a whole new dimension for the ambitious attorney.

In this, her second novel, Smith offers a deftly plotted mystery with rich characters, red herrings, and twists and turns that keep you guessing, plus a WOW ending!

I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Blind Spot, published by Puzzle Box Press, to mystery and suspense thriller fans. I received my copy courtesy of the author.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Death and the Visitors – so worth the wait

Bestselling author Heather Redmond’s Death and the Visitors is the much anticipated sequel to her Mary Shelley Mystery series debut of Death and the Sisters. Now I eagerly await the third book in the series.

Once again, I loved getting to be a fly on the wall to the fictional goings on of the almost 17-year-old Frankenstein author, her months younger step-sister Jane (later known as Claire) Clairmont, acclaimed poet and Mary’s future husband Percy Bysshe Shelley.

This installment set in 1814, London where royals and diplomats have descended on the city after Napoleon’s death and in advance of the Congress of Vienna, finds the trio as they seek to find missing diamonds, solve two murders, and keep Mary’s father out of debtor’s prison.

As enthusiastic followers of Mary’s late philosopher mother Mary Wollstonecraft, members of the advance team of the Russian contingent, which included the mesmerizing Polish Princess Maria, her Russian husband and his brother, visited the family home above the bookshop.

After a lively discussion at dinner, the Russians pledged diamonds in support of Mary’s father William Godwin and stepmother’s publishing venture, the Juvenile Library. However noble the work, it was failing financially with creditors leaning hard for payment.

When Godwin, sans diamonds, learns a Russian was pulled from the Thames, Mary, Jane and Shelley must try to remove suspicion from the family and keep the moneylenders at bay.

While the light-fingered, favored daughter Jane is off at singing lessons, where she meets the romantic poet Lord Byron – the future father of her daughter, Mary’s cruel stepmother sent the cook to prison for taking a dress belonging to sister, Fanny, and had Mary play Cinderella of sorts toiling away in the kitchen.

Toss in a Scottish suitor for Mary, as well as her attempted human trafficking kidnapping, you’ll find a well rounded mystery with twists and turns that will keep you guessing, not to mention allusions to Mary’s thinking that would one day be part of her iconic work.

I highly recommend Death and the Visitors to mystery fans, historical mystery fans, poetry, science fiction and horror fans. I received this advance reader’s copy from Kensington Books, courtesy of NetGalley.

Click here to read my review of the first Mary Shelley mysteries, Death and the Sisters.
Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Fun book-themed cozy

Loving cozy British mysteries set in bucolic villages with the most amusing of names as I do, I couldn’t pass up the chance to read The Murders in Great Diddling by New York Times bestselling author Katarina Bivald.

Berit Gardner moved to inland Cornwall and Great Diddling to escape London, her agent and writer’s block, hoping for peace, a little intrigue and inspiration for her next novel.

A manor house tea party murder in a town with more secrets and lies than residents was all the bestselling author needed to start the wheels spinning and put her novelist powers of observation to use, not only in hopes for her next book but to solving the crime as well with a little help from her assistant/agent’s daughter, Sally, and DCI Ian Ahmed.

When the town’s tourism board decides they should capitalize on the explosive murder in Tawny Hall’s grand library with a murder and books festival, the flawed and amusing characters as suspects came out of the woodwork, along with a red herring or two for a fun cozy read.

I recommend The Murders in Great Diddling to fans of cozy book-themed British mysteries and anyone who enjoys literary-themed mysteries. I received this advanced reader copy of The Murders in Great Diddling from Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Fun beach read

Anyone who has ever read a British mystery or watched one on-screen knows that if there is a festival, a village fete or a jumble sale for that matter, a body is bound to turn up. Fiona Leitch’s The Cornish Campsite Murder, the sixth installment of her Nosey Parker Mysteries, is no exception.

Former Met police detective Jodie Parker and her betrothed, DI Nathan Withers, are helping out a friend, manning a Cornish pie van called Pie Hard for a camp-out weekend music festival, just down the coast from her home in the fictional Penstowan.

I liked Jodie from the start — her sense of humor, her family and her detective’s curiosity. In The Cornish Campsite Murder, a body of a former lead band member of one of Jodie’s favorites is found by the beach and her teen idol is one of the prime suspects.

I could relate to the universal feeling of actually getting to meet/speak to your teen idol and fearing they won’t live up to your expectations or if they do, that you’ll make a fool of yourself. But what if they are murderers or you falsely accuse them, ruin their reputation and they hate you? That’s the dilemma in which Jodie finds herself.

Fiona Leitch offers a humorous mystery with some fun twists, a host of colorful characters and a satisfying ending. What more could you ask for in a summer read? How about a recipe for a leek and sausage pie at the end of the book? (Having enjoyed a leek and potato pasty on a train ride from Cornwall to London, the Pie Hard’s Die Hard-themed pies sounded both delicious and a little adventuresome. I can’t wait to return for another authentic Cornish pie.)

I highly recommend The Cornish Campsite Murder for British cozy mystery fans, humorous mystery fans and beach readers. This one fits the bill for all of the above.

I received this advanced reader copy of The Cornish Campsite Murder from One More Chapter, an imprint of Harper Collins UK, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Meet my new favorite crime-solving duo

A Collection of Lies, A Kate Hamilton Mystery, by Connie Berry book cover
While USA Bestselling author Connie Berry’s A Collection of Lies is the fifth of her Kate Hamilton Mystery series, the story, the characters, the case to be solved works so perfectly as a standalone but with enough tease to the back-story that you’ll want to read the entire series. So much so that I have already ordered two of the earlier four installments.

In A Collection of Lies, we find American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton and her new husband, DI Tom Mallory, on their honeymoon in Devon, in southwest England. As a favor to a colleague of Tom’s, Kate agrees to put her antique textile expertise to the test exploring whether an old, bloodstained, lace dress could possibly be linked to a long-cold-case murder.

With the discovery of long-held secrets, a shooting at a local history museum gala and a very warm murder of a Victorian You-Tuber, to which Tom assists the local constabulary to solve, and the newlyweds are soon hot on the trail of a mystery with plot turns that keep you guessing.

My new favorite crime-solving duo, I love Kate and Tom’s rapport not to mention their abilities to follow clues and their senses to solve a satisfying caper. I can’t wait to go back and read their origin story in A Dream of Death.

I highly recommend A Collection of Lies to fans of traditional cozy mysteries, British mysteries, and partners in crime-solving duos.

I received this advanced reader copy of A Collection of Lies from Crooked Lane Books, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Cryptic Phrase Sets Tone for Murder at Land’s End

Cornwall is one of my most favorite places on Earth, so I was thrilled to get the chance to read Murder at Land’s End by Sally Rigby.

In this the third book of the series, Detective Inspector Lauren Pengelly and Detective Sergeant Matt Price lead the investigation into the murder of a young woman, whose body was found on the rocks off the coast of Lands End, the western most point in Cornwall and the most southwesterly point on the British mainland.

As I hadn’t read the previous installments of the series, I was amused to read that Price, a young widower relatively new to the Penzance police station, has an aversion to dead bodies. I imagined it presenting itself much the way the blood aversion affects Doc Martin, in the series by the same name, set in Port Wenn (actually Port Isaac), also in Cornwall. However, his voice in my head sounded more like Ralf Little, who portrays DI Neville Parker in Death in Paradise.

The cryptic phrase, “Men must work and women must weep,” was found on a piece of paper in the victim’s mouth. While it took me only seconds with a Google search to learn that the phrase was taken from The Three Fishers, a poem by Charles Kingsley, Pengelly put a member of her team into investigating its meaning, making it seem a little unrealistic to me.

I enjoyed the premise, the setting and the characters but the story, however, didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Even with the discovery of a second body, more suspects, a tricky family crisis for Pengelly, the overdone narration and not enough of a twist at the end, left me feeling like there was something missing. I so wanted to love Murder at Land’s End.

I received this advanced reader copy of Murder at Land’s End from Storm Publishing, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

So Much to Love in A Midnight Puzzle

There is so much for classic and cozy mystery fans to love in locked room mystery master Gigi Pandian’s A Midnight Puzzle, her third installment in her Secret Staircase Mystery series. 

First, there’s her amateur sleuth, Tempest Raj, whom I imagine as a beautiful Marvel superhero spinning her way to solving “impossible” mysteries. One who has a rich backstory and wonderful supporting characters.

Deadly booby traps in a spooky old theater, where Tempest’s mother had vanished years earlier, selkie folklore and nods to the greatest mystery writers of all time and there’s no doubt Pandian is deserving of all of her accolades, including having won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty and Deringer awards as well as being a finalist for an Edgar award.

Even though I did guess the murderer early on, there were plenty of fun plot spins to keep me turning the pages so to be fair, I dinged it half a star.

I wish Tempest and Grandpa Ash were real. I wish he would come riding his bicycle in my neighborhood and bring some of his delicious Indian treats. If you’re like me, you’ll be delighted to learn that Pandian included a few recipes at the end of book.

Last but not least, I also wish Tempest and I could be friends and hang out with her and Ivy at the wonderful library where Ivy works. I’d also love it if she’d help me to build me a secret bookcase door for my bedroom.
I highly recommend A Midnight Puzzle to all cozy mystery fans and look forward to going back and reading previous installments of the Secret Staircase mysteries.

I received this advanced reader copy of Minotaur Books, courtesy of NetGalley.Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Can’t-Put-It-Down-Rainy-Day-Read-Ride

Bestselling author and 2023 Edgar Award nominee Sulari Gentill took me on a can’t-put-it-down, rainy-day-read ride that had me finishing The Mystery Writer in less than 10 hours even with a packed day of innkeeping duties for a full house of B&B guests.

The title drew me in. The prologue intrigued me. Chapter One’s first paragraph had me wondering what I was getting myself into and whether or not I should just close the book. Luckily, just paragraphs later I met Theo and was hooked.

Theodosia Benton left law school and showed up on her attorney big brother’s Kansas doorstep, having not seen Gus since he left Australia when she was just 10 years old.

Inspired by events from her life back in Tanzania, Theo was determined instead to become a writer, a goal Gus supported, encouraging his little sister to follow her dream never expecting what came next. The dream turned into a nightmare when her brother became the prime suspect in the murder of the man, who had become Theo’s mentor.

I highly recommend The Mystery Writer. With engaging characters, as well as a couple of conspiracies, expected and not, you’ve got a gripping mystery in store.

I received this advanced reader copy of Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.
 
 
 

Ian Moore perfectly pairs Murder and Fromage in a fun romp of a mystery

Bestselling author Ian Moore takes Richard Ainsworth, the middle-aged English hotelier of a Loire Valley Bed and Breakfast, his French bounty hunter friend, Valerie, her pampered pup Passepartout and we readers on a deliciously humorous romp of a mystery in Death and Fromage, the second in his Follet Valley Mystery series. 
 
Poor Richard is estranged from his wife, bored with his life and known to drown his sorrows in a glass while watching classic cinema, that is until a Michelin star restauranteur is killed and Richard and Valerie set off to find the murderer of more than one goat cheese-infused slaying victim.
 
While it’s mentioned several times that our protagonist resembles Downton Abbey’s Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), the voice I heard throughout was that of another put-upon man named Richard, who lets others navigate his life while he bounces along for the ride, portrayed by the late Clive Smith, husband to Hyacinth Bucket (Dame Patricia Routledge), who pronounces their surname Bouquet, in the British television classic Keeping Up Appearances. Imagining that poor Richard with hen poop on his shoulder had finally come into his own made this novel all the more satisfying for me.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed Death and Fromage, its sometimes laugh-out-loud humor that keep up the pace around every plot twist and turn, along with an amusing group of supporting characters and highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys a funny, light, cozy mystery. I look forward to reading the other installments in the series. I received this advanced reader copy of Death and Fromage from Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley.
 
Order online or purchase at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Seller’s Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Spenser is back

Thank you, Mike Lupica and the Robert B. Parker estate for bringing us back an old friend in Broken Trust.

It’s been more than a decade, maybe even two since I last visited Boston via a Spenser novel, featuring the rough and tumble private eye with the heart of a poet, his sidekick, Hawk (don’t tell Hawk I called him that ;), and his lady love, Harvard-trained psychologist Susan Silverman.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed the trio, their banter, the literary references (lots of Red Sox references too) and, of course, the case Spenser must solve.

In Broken Trust, we meet Spenser moving into a new apartment in his old neighborhood, a good way for someone new to the books, a longtime Parker fan or someone who remembers the 1980s tv series Spenser for Hire, based on the novels.

This particular mystery revolves around a science nerd turned philanthropist-billionaire acting out, his concerned wife, his business partner, assistant and everyone involved in a gazillion dollar merger in the sixth-richest man in the world’s synthetic lithium company.

The New York Times bestselling novelist, Mike Lupica, did an outstanding job of giving readers Spenser’s voice in this 50th Spenser novel, with as much depth and clarity as the late Parker himself.

I highly recommend Broken Trust and look forward to going back and reading more of my favorite Beantown PI. I received this advance reader copy from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, courtesy NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

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