Arnaldur Indridason
Hypothermia (Icelandic 2007, English 2009, US release 9/14/10), the 8th in the Erlendur series (6th in English), was a finalist for the 2010 International Dagger Award. Things are not too busy around the station in Reykjavik, Iceland, because Erlendur is acting mostly on his own this time, as he continues investigating a suicide everyone else thinks is wrapped up, and also revives some 30-year-old cold case files (and in Iceland cold cases can be very cold). We read the italicized thoughts of Maria, the eventual suicide, who had witnessed her father’s death by drowning in the lake at their summer cabin when she was 10, and has been bereft following the recent death of her mother Leonora from cancer. Maria was devoted to, and controlled by, her mother, and her husband Baldvin, a doctor, can do little to help her. Maria has turned to seances and spiritualism, and has gotten signs from the other side. There is enough here to trigger Erlendur’s trademark nibbling investigation; persistent and apologetic, he is unrelenting in his search for the truth. Erlendur is distracted, once again, by his semi-estranged children, with daughter Eva Lind insisting on a rapprochement with his ex-wife Halldora. Woven with these elements is the search for young people who disappeared in a blizzard long ago, which readers of this series know will trigger Erlendur’s obsession with the snowy disappearance of his 8-year-old brother, which shattered Erlendur’s childhood and his family. Hypothermia, so appropriately titled in English, is another brilliant installment, replete with the steady, solemn, and droll writing we’ve come to expect from Arnaldur.

Belinda Bauer
Blacklands (Simon & Schuster 2010) is the story of a family still experiencing the repercussions of the disappearance of a child 18 years earlier. When 11-year-old Billy vanished and was never found, his mother went into shock and never recovered, waiting by the door for him to return every day and keeping his room unchanged. Fourteen-year old Lettie lost her brother and all but the shell of her mother at one stroke. A year later Arnold Avery was arrested and convicted of killing six other children and burying their bodies on the desolate moor near Billy’s village, but Billy’s body was never found. The year he turns 12, Lettie’s love-starved son Steven decides to dig up the moor and find the body of his uncle Billy, hoping that will convince his grandmother that Billy is really dead, transforming her into the Nan of his dreams, full of affection for her grandson and daughter. After months of fruitless digging, a letter writing lesson in school inspires Steven to write to Avery in prison, asking for help finding the body in a way only Avery will understand. Avery, consumed by prison boredom, sends an enigmatic reply, and the two begin a cautious correspondence of subtle hints that must be carefully puzzled out. The slow progress of the exchange of letters, highlighting Steven’s naivety and Avery’s predatory nature, is painful, terrifying, and totally riveting. This debut suspense novel, nominated for the Gold Dagger Award, is beautifully written, and very unsettling.

Gail Bowen
Deadly Appearances (1990) introduces Joanne Kilbourne, a speech writer and organizer for her good friend Andy Boychuk, a successful politician in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Joanne is still recovering from the death of her husband three years earlier, and Andy’s sudden death at the end-of-summer political celebration hits her hard, especially when she learns Andy was murdered. To help herself through the grieving, Joanne decides to write Andy’s biography and begins interviewing his family and friends with the help of Rick Spenser, another old friend of Andy’s, now a TV news star. As Joanne begins to uncover secrets from Andy’s past, she succumbs to a mysterious illness. The doctors can’t find anything physically wrong with her, and suggest that her symptoms may be a reaction to the stress of Andy’s death. Joanne is a sympathetic protagonist, an everyday sort of person with normal self-doubts, three believable kids, and the people skills needed to convince people to tell her more than they may have intended to. The Canadian prairie setting and insights into the workings of Canadian politics add to the enjoyment of this debut novel. The Nesting Dolls, 12th in the series, was released in August.

Gerald Elias
Devil’s Trill (Minotaur 2009) introduces Daniel Jacobus, a blind, reclusive, crotchety violin teacher living in self-imposed exile in rural New England. Jacobus emerges from his seclusion to attend the Grimsley Competition at Carnegie Hall in New York City, held every 13 years to select the best violinist age 13 or younger. The violinist chosen by the Grimsley Competition wins the honor of performing a concert on the Piccolino Stradivarius, a 3/4 size violin with a long and unfortunate history. Jacobus, a former competitor, firmly believes that the Grimsley Competition is destructive to young violinists, harmful to both their development as artists and to their mental well-being. When the Piccolino Stradivarius is stolen during the competition, Jacobus, who made no secret of his distaste for the competition, is the prime suspect. With the help of friend Nathaniel Williams and student Yumi Shinagawa, Jacobus begins a search for the missing violin through a maze of self-serving philanthropists, shady musical instrument dealers, competitive music teachers, ruthless parents, and fragile students. Fascinating insights into the world of violin players and the destructive industry of producing child prodigies enliven this debut mystery. Danse Macabre, the second in the series, was just released.

David Ellis
The Hidden Man (Putnam 2009) introduces Jason Kolarich, a grief-stricken lawyer in Chicago, Illinois. Jason is struggling to get his life back on track after losing his wife and baby daughter in a car accident four months ago, when a man who calls himself "Mr. Smith" presents him with a briefcase full of cash to take on the defense of Sam Cutler. Jason and Sammy were best friends as children and through high school, when football and a college scholarship for Jason separated them. Sam is now in jail, accused of killing Griffin Perlini, the pedophile suspected of kidnapping Sam’s two-year old sister Audrey nearly 30 years earlier. While searching for someone else with a motive against Perlini, Jason uncovers new evidence of Perlini’s crimes against children, but nothing to tie him to Audrey’s disappearance. Mr. Smith provides a witness who is willing to testify he saw someone else fleeing the murder scene, and pushes Jason to expedite the trial as much as possible, making Jason wonder if it is possible that Sammy didn’t murder Perlini after all. Jason is an engaging protagonist, desperately trying to pull himself out of his emotional coma in order to help his boyhood friend. Layers of the past are slowly stripped away, revealing uncomfortable truths in this compelling and complex legal thriller, a finalist for the 2010 Barry Award for Best Novel.

Carol Goodman
The Seduction of Water (2003) is the story of Iris Greenfeder, a 36-year old barely published writer now teaching English in New York City. Iris’s life is stagnant: she can’t finish her dissertation, the relationship with her boyfriend of 10 years has fallen into a regular and unsatisfying pattern, and she can’t find the motivation to write. Everything changes the day Iris decides to ask the mainly immigrant students one of her classes to write about a favorite childhood fairy tale. As a model, Iris writes about the selkie (half-seal, half-woman) story she was told by her mother, Kay, every night until her mother’s death when Iris was 10. The assignment is so successful that Iris repeats it with her other two classes — one at the prison, one at an art college — and finds that all of her students are touched by the assignment in deeply personal ways. Iris is so pleased with her own piece that she offers it to a magazine, where it is accepted with an option to write further memoirs about her mother. Inspired to write again, Iris realizes how little she knows about her mother’s life before she began working as a maid at the Equinox, the Catskills hotel where Iris grew up. Returning to the Equinox for the summer, Iris searches for the missing third book in her mother’s fantasy trilogy while slowly uncovering clues about her mother’s past. The selkie myth interwoven into Kay’s novels also weaves through Iris’s story in this romantic suspense novel, which was awarded the 2003 Hammett Prize.

David Housewright
The Taking of Libbie, SD (Minotaur 2010) is the 7th Rushmore McKenzie title, taking place mostly in South Dakota. McKenzie, the former St. Paul, Minnesota, cop and lucky millionaire, has been kidnapped from his home by two brutal bounty hunters hired by folks in Libbie who were hornswoggled by a mall developer using McKenzie’s name. Although the impostor resembles McKenzie, the Libbie-ites soon realize their mistake, and they join forces to find the con man and the misappropriated city funds. In the process, some local scores get settled, with McKenzie in the middle. McKenzie has a few scuffles with local bullies, and indulges in some undesirable vigilante tendencies. Still, this is another highly readable installment in the unlicensed PI’s adventures. Housewright again shows his talent for writing local color, this time focused on small town life miles from anywhere in the northern Great Plains. Poor McKenzie seems to get battered more than he needs, but the book is full of breezy writing laced with the author’s usual dry wit.

Laura Lippman
I’d Know You Anywhere (William Morrow 2010) examines the life of a woman who was kidnapped in 1985 at age 15 (then Elizabeth Lerner), and held for nearly six weeks by Walter Bowman, now on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of Holly, his final victim. Now Eliza Benedict has fashioned a comfortable, relatively trouble-free life as a homemaker in Maryland, with her supportive husband Peter, challenging 13-year-old daughter Iso (NOT Isobel!), and endearing 8-year-old son Albie. Walter’s execution date is drawing near, after 22 years on death row, and with some outside help he has tracked Eliza down and wants her help. This is most unwelcome to Eliza, but reminiscent of her behavior when she was kidnapped, she seems almost unable to resist communicating with Walter. Why didn’t she escape? And could she have saved Holly? The story alternates between 1985 and the present, and we see things from Eliza’s and Walter’s perspectives, as well as other characters. Lippman tells a compelling story, building unrelentingly step by step. As one would expect, the writing is superb, and even though we’ve grown tired of serial killer books, this one is an exception and not to be missed.

Louise Penny
The Brutal Telling (Minotaur 2009) finds Armand Gamache and his homicide team from the Sûreté du Québec back in the village of Three Pines, Quebec, after the murdered body of an unknown man is found in Olivier’s Bistro. Olivier denies all knowledge of the man, though he knew him as The Hermit, and delivered groceries to his secluded cabin every two weeks. When the cabin is eventually discovered by the police, Gamache finds that the man was using priceless antiques as furniture and tableware, reading signed first editions, decorating with European treasures that disappeared during WWII, and using money to seal cracks in the walls. The cabin also contains two incredible carvings made from cedar, which at first appear joyful but gradually fill the viewer with a feeling of dread. As usual, the inhabitants of Three Pines are nearly as important as the investigation: Clara struggles through the process of producing the first show of her paintings, Ruth dresses her duck in infant clothing and torments Inspector Beauvior with scraps of poetry, newcomers Marc and Dominique Gilbert work to transform the old Hadley house (site of two murders) into an upscale hotel and spa. Red herrings abound in this compelling fifth in the series, which received the 2009 Agatha Award for Best Novel and is a finalist for the Anthony and Macavity Awards for Best Mystery Novel.

Spencer Quinn (Peter Abrahams)
Dog on It (Atria 2009) introduces Bernie Little, a former cop, in this mystery narrated in a beautifully dead-pan tone by his dog Chet. Recently divorced and missing his young son, Bernie is just making ends meet when Cynthia Chambliss hires him to find her 15-year-old daughter Madison, who didn’t come home from school. Each partner of the Little Detective Agency brings distinct skills to the investigation: Chet, who failed K-9 school for a reason he can’t quite remember, has a superb sense of smell and can see in the dark, and Bernie can read maps and talk to the clients. While Bernie and Chet are investigating Madison’s room, she reappears with a dubious explanation for her absence. When Madison disappears for the second time within a week, her father, a real estate developer who smells strongly of cat, insists she has run away again, but Bernie is sure something is fishy. Chet has the soul of a classic detective (superb observational skills, loyalty to his partner, determination to solve the case at all costs), while remaining totally true to his doggy nature (addiction to wind-blown scents, short attention span, eager to snack on anything he can find). The deft balance of humor and mystery, plus two highly enjoyable characters, make this first in a series not to be missed.

Martin Edwards
The Coffin Trail (Poisoned Pen 2004) introduces Daniel Kind, an Oxford historian who buys a cottage in the Lake District of England, and Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett of the Cold Case Squad. Daniel is attracted to the cottage since Barrie Gilpin, a friend made during a happy childhood vacation, lived there. Barrie, who had Asperger’s syndrome, was later accused of the brutal rape and murder of a young woman. Since Barrie fell to his death immediately after the crime, it was assumed he was guilty. Hannah Scarlett, recently assigned to the Cold Case Squad, receives an anonymous phone call suggesting that Barrie was innocent, probably stirred up by Daniel’s questions about the past, and decides to re-open the investigation. Moving from different directions, Daniel and Hannah’s investigations eventually intersect, sparking some personal interest during the exchange of information. Though Daniel has moved to the country with Miranda, his new love, it soon becomes apparent that Miranda isn’t as enamored of country life as Daniel is, leaving open the possibility that Daniel may stay in the Lake District to assist Hannah with yet more Cold Cases. (The Serpent Pool, 4th in the series, was released earlier this year.)

Michael Genelin
Siren of the Waters (Soho 2008) introduces Jana Matinova, a police commander in Bratislava, Slovakia. Called to investigate a car crash and fire that leaves seven bodies scattered in pieces in the snow, Jana wonders if it was really an accident. When her clueless assistant discovers a ledger containing a mysterious code taped under the couch of the apartment of the dead driver, Jana is sure the deaths were planned. After discovering that the dead women were prostitutes imported from Russia, Jana travels to Kiev, and learns of Ivan “Koba” Makine, a ruthless criminal mastermind. Since Koba was believed to have been killed at least twice before the car crash in Bratislava, Jana is sure that he is still alive, perhaps searching for the hidden ledger. Taking advantage of an invitation to speak about the case at an EU sex trafficking convention in Strasbourg, Jana follows the threads of her case to Vienna and Nice. Neatly woven through the investigation is Jana’s backstory — her marriage to an actor and life under the Communist regime that destroyed her husband, her marriage, and her relationship with her daughter — as she tries to reconnect with her daughter and baby granddaughter. Vivid descriptions of the shadows of the past hanging over the present — even the massive furniture hulks about in a grim way— highlight the reality of modern Slovakia. A strong and likable protagonist, Jana more than compensates for the occasional plot weaknesses.

Kathryn Miller Haines
The War Against Miss Winter (2007) introduces Rosie Winter, a struggling actress working as a secretary for private detective Jim McCain in New York City. On New Year’s Eve 1942, Rosie discovers Jim’s body hanging in the closet of his office. An unsympathetic cop is eager to rule the death a suicide, but Rosie is convinced Jim was killed. When a mysterious client appears asking for news of his missing papers Rosie agrees to look through the files and soon discovers that the missing papers may be a stolen script by a famous and recently murdered playwright. With the help of her best friend Jayne, a tiny and high-voiced actress dubbed America’s Squeakheart, Rosie finds herself mixing with high society and mobsters in search of the missing script. Rosie’s world isn’t easy, what with food rationing, frequent blackouts, worries about the rent, and a boyfriend who hasn’t written since he was sent overseas immediately after a quarrel. But Rosie is more than capable of dealing with the cut-throat world of the theater, and isn’t about to let a few threats on her life get between her and her goal to succeed as an actress in this pitch-perfect historical debut mystery.

Timothy Hallinan
Breathing Water (William Morrow 2009), the 3rd in the Poke Rafferty series, finds Poke in the middle of a poker game where he wins the chance to write a biography of Khun Pan, a major player in the Bangkok underworld. Poke doesn’t trust Pan, but his Thai wife Rose sees Pan as a hero who gives generously to the poor. Threatened by a couple of thugs who warn Poke to write the book based only on interviews with those opposed to Pan, and pressured by Pan’s minions to write a flattering one, Poke fears that Rose and their adopted daughter Miaow have become pawns in a dangerous power struggle. Meanwhile, Da, a poverty-stricken village girl is given a baby to use as a begging tool on the streets of the city. Concerned for her own safety and frightened that the baby will be taken away, Da decides to trust Boo, a street child who offers to help her escape, and the trio end up at Poke’s asking for protection from the baby smugglers. The last thing Poke needs is another battle to fight, but he can’t say no, especially since Boo watched over Miaow during her time as a street child. Poke stays amazingly calm in the midst of the turmoil swirling around him as he tries to figure out a way to protect his family and find some sort of justice for the innocent. This beautifully written thriller exposes the corruption and unrest in modern Thailand while celebrating its unique culture and people.

Naomi Hirahara
Blood Hina (Minotaur 2010), the 4th in the Mas Arai series, finds the elderly gardener reluctantly preparing to act as best man for his friend and fellow Hiroshima survivor Harou Mukai. A recovering gambler, Harou met Spoon Hayakawa, the widow he plans to marry, at the Los Angeles flower market where they both work. But the wedding is suddenly called off when a pair of antique Japanese Girls’ Day hina dolls are stolen from Spoon’s home. Harou is blamed for the theft, and even Mas begins to wonder if his friend is guilty when rumors surface that Harou has returned to gambling. Mas suspects that Spoon’s daughter Dee, a recovering addict, may be involved in the theft, but Dee seems unexpectedly eager to help Mas track down the thief. Mas follows the history of the hina dolls which takes him on a tangled trail back through the Japanese internment camps of WWII, an old murder, the drug trade, and submerged memories that many would like to keep buried. Throughout the book Mas struggles with his own desire yet inability to connect to those around him. Harou comes to stay for an unspecified time, which drives Mas crazy until Harou disappears. Dee reminds Mas too much of his own estranged daughter, and Mas can’t figure out if a female acquaintance is interested in him or in his gardening skills. Mas is an unconventional amateur sleuth, constantly seeking to escape the spotlight and avoid trouble, yet unable to drop his investigation until he comes to the end of the thread.

Lou Manfredo
Rizzo’s War (Minotaur 2009) is the story of a year in the life of Joe Rizzo, a veteran NYPD detective, and his ambitious young partner Mike McQueen, newly promoted to detective after saving the roommate of the mayor’s daughter from a rape attempt. McQueen isn’t too sure about his new partner, especially after Rizzo tells McQueen that he is under investigation by Internal Affairs because his former partner is believed to have betrayed a police mole in a local gangster’s organization. McQueen sees everything in black-and-white, but to Rizzo it’s all shades of gray: “There’s no wrong, there’s no right, there just is.” Rizzo and McQueen are given the task of finding the runaway daughter of Bill Daley, a city councilman up for re-election. The daughter is manic-depressive, and Daley insists that the investigation be off the record to protect his political image. Rizzo and McQueen suspect that Daley is more worried about something his daughter may have taken, but her mother insists she may be suicidal since she left without her meds. This isn’t the only case the two take on throughout the course of the book, but it is the defining one, as McQueen is forced to come to a decision about what kind of cop he is going to be. Despite some awkward pacing, this solid debut police procedural creates a realistic environment for an exploration of the importance of the small decisions cops make every day.

Stuart Neville
The Ghosts of Belfast (Soho 2009; APA The Twelve) is the story of Gerry Fegan, an IRA hit man recently released from prison, who is haunted by the ghosts of 12 innocent people he killed. Though Fegan tries to numb himself with alcohol, he becomes convinced that the only way he can be free of the ghosts is to assassinate the men who gave the orders for each death. The IRA militant underworld pays Fegan a monthly salary in recompense for the 12 years he served in prison, but otherwise ignores the babbling drunk he has become. But when Fegan is the last to be seen with highly placed IRA men who turn up dead, the IRA political organization begins to worry that Fegan has gone rogue. Campbell, an agent for British intelligence who has been working undercover for years, is ordered to neutralize Fegan before the tenuous peace after eighty-odd years of conflict is destroyed. Desperate to atone for his past crimes, the anguished Fegan clings to the hope of a new beginning with Marie McKenna, the niece of one of his victims, and her young daughter. Fegan is an incredible character, and this debut novel, a finalist for the Anthony, Barry, Dilys, and Macavity Awards, is so well-written that redemption through murder becomes a believable premise.

Hank Phillippi Ryan
Air Time (Mira 2009) finds Boston’s TV investigative reporter Charlie (Charlotte) McNally hot on the trail of a ring of high-fashion counterfeit purse distributors. While stranded in the Baltimore airport, Charlie helps an ultra fashionable woman heave an expensive designer suitcase off the conveyor belt. In thanks, the woman gives Charlie an invitation to a "Designer Doubles" party, where fake purses can be bought for a fraction of the price of the real thing. With producer Franklin, Charlie interviews the FBI team about “Operation Knockoff,” which is trying to uncover the distribution system for fake purses. Off the record, the FBI agents reveal that two FBI agents have been killed while investigating the international smuggling of purses. Sure that this story will win her another Emmy, Charlie goes undercover at the purse party. Her determination to stick with the story despite the danger threatens Charlie’s relationship with her boyfriend Josh, but Charlie can’t let go of the investigation. Third in the series, this clever mix of mystery, humor, and romance is a finalist for the 2009 Agatha Award for Best Novel and the Anthony Award for Best Paperback.

Sarah Smith
The Vanished Child (1992) is the story of Baron Alexander von Reisden, a young Austrian biochemist, who is still recovering from the death of his beloved wife in a car accident. Reisden, who was driving the car, is haunted by the image of his wife’s broken and bloody body. Though absorbed by his research into the chemistry of muscle movement, Reisden finds himself unable to get on with his life. At a busy train station, a stranger believes he recognizes Reisden as Richard Knight, a young boy who was kidnapped and never seen again after the murder of his wealthy grandfather, William Knight, in 1887. William left his entire estate to Richard, and Gilbert Knight, William’s brother who would inherit after Richard, can’t believe that Richard is dead and refuses to start the legal proceedings to establish death. When one of Gilbert’s lawyers notices the family resemblance in Reisden, they hatch a plot to introduce Reisden to Gilbert, hoping that realizing Reisden is not Richard will convince Gilbert to accept that he is really dead. Reisden comes to stay with Gilbert, and finds himself attracted to Perdita Halley, Gilbert’s niece, but strangely uncomfortable on the Knight estate. Beautifully written with complex and compelling characters, this debut novel of psychological suspense is the first in a trilogy.

P.J. Tracy
Monkeewrench (2003) introduces Grace MacBride, the reclusive founder of a game software company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The five co-owners of Monkeewrench are piloting their new Serial Killer Detective game online and are horrified when they read about a murder that is staged to look like the second murder in their game. When they inform the police, the detectives realize that another killing was based on the first murder in the game, which unfortunately has 20 murders in all. The Monkeewrench owners offer to help the police, but the police become suspicious when they discover that Grace and her friends created new identities for themselves ten years earlier. Meanwhile, an elderly couple is killed in a church in Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin sheriff begins an investigation that eventually intersects with the killings in Minnesota. This engaging thriller combines elements of a police procedural with technological investigation plus some very human and interesting characters who enjoy lively banter. Written by a mother-daughter team, this debut novel was awarded both the Anthony and Barry Awards for Best First Novel.

R.J. Ellory
A Quiet Belief in Angels (UK 2007, US Overlook 2009) is the story of Joseph Calvin Vaughn, who is 12 years old in 1939 when his classmate is raped and murdered in the small town of Augusta Falls, Georgia. Joseph, a sensitive and observant boy who lives alone with his mother after his father’s death, is encouraged by his teacher to pursue his dream of being a writer. In 1942, after the fourth girl is killed, Joseph gathers together a small group of classmates who decide to make secret patrols with the mission of guarding the young girls. They call themselves The Guardians, but are unable to prevent the next murder, and Joseph himself finds the body. Against the background of the war in Europe, Joseph obsesses about his inability to protect the innocent, even after the murders eventually cease to happen. In time, Joseph moves to Brooklyn, which he sees as a mecca for writers, to pursue his dream, but is unable to shake off the dark cloud of despair and helplessness that marred his childhood. Returning to Georgia when his mother is on her deathbed, Joseph realizes that the murders are still happening, that young girls have been raped and murdered for over 30 years. This compelling story of an artistic and sensitive nature bruised and battered by grim reality was a finalist for the 2008 Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel and the 2009 Dilys Award. Perhaps more a novel than a mystery, this beautifully written book is not to be missed.

Tim Gautreaux
The Missing (2009) is the story of Sam Simoneaux, who returns from WWI hoping for a peaceful life. Sam loves his job as a floorwalker in the biggest department store in New Orleans until the day that the three-year-old daughter of two entertainers on a Mississippi steamboat goes missing. Sam is blamed for the lost child and loses his job. On the promise that he can have the job back if he finds the child, Sam joins Elsie and Tom Weller on the riverboat, sure that the kidnapping was planned by someone who saw the child during a performance. As the steamboat meanders down the river, Sam searches for clues while confronting demons from his own past and learning new ways to think about music from the talented Tom Weller and the black musicians playing jazz at the nightly parties. Sam’s investigations off the boat reveal the lawlessness of the backwoods along the Mississippi, where ruthless clannish families rule through violence and fear. Themes of loss, abandonment, belonging, and revenge are explored throughout this rich and lyrical novel full of complex and memorable characters. Though not primarily a mystery, this beautifully written historical novel was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Mystery.

Cora Harrison
My Lady Judge (Minotaur 2007) introduces Mara, the only female judge appointed by King Turlough Donn O’Brien, in 1509 Ireland. At the age of 36, Mara is content with her responsibilities training law students and serving as the Brehon (judge) for the kingdom of Burren on the west coast of Ireland. When the whole village climbs the limestone terraces of Mullaghmore Mountain to celebrate the great May Day festival, lighting a bonfire and then singing and dancing through the night, Mara and her guest the king return early. The next morning all of Mara’s law students have returned except Colman, a former student serving as her assistant. When his murdered body is found and no one comes forward to confess and pay the death fine, Mara knows she must find the guilty party to preserve peace in the kingdom. Each chapter of this well-researched novel is prefaced by a bit of fascinating Brehon law, a complicated mix of custom and common sense that assigns value to each person and crime. Mara is an engaging protagonist: fiercely independent, clever in both book learning and people sense, and determined to arrive at a just conclusion to each case. Though at times overloaded by the trivia of medieval Irish dress and custom, the relatively slow-moving pace suits the story perfectly in this satisfying debut historical mystery.

James Hime
Where Armadillos Go To Die (Minotaur 2009) opens with retired Texas Ranger Jeremiah Spur and his wife Martha dining at Bourré, home of the best catfish in Brenham, Texas. Jeremiah is looking forward to fried food, a treat not part of the healthy diet Martha has him on, but he isn’t allowed to partake until owner Sylvester Bradshaw shows off his invention, a contraption that takes the muddy taste from catfish. Martha starts feeling ill in the middle of the meal, and grows worse overnight. A visit to the hospital confirms an E. coli infection, and Jeremiah shares the hospital waiting room with an anxious father whose little girl is fighting the same infection. When Bradshaw’s daughter tracks Jeremiah down to ask for his help locating her missing father, he is reluctant to leave Martha’s side, but the ransacked restaurant and missing invention convince Jeremiah that the incompetent local law enforcement team truly needs his help. After learning that several venture capitalists have been trying to buy the rights to Bradshaw’s invention, Jeremiah has plenty of candidates for suspicion including Bradshaw’s own family and the ultra-rich former NFL star ex-deputy Clyde Thomas is working for. Hime’s confident mix of humor and suspense shines in this third book in the series featuring an engagingly mellow protagonist firmly set in a typical Texas small town.

Gene Kerrigan
The Midnight Choir (2006) is the story of Harry Synnott, a detective inspector in Dublin, Ireland. Synnott is ostracized by many of his colleagues because of his exposure of Garda (police) brutality against the suspect in the murder of a young Garda during a bank robbery twenty years earlier, but his reputation as a man who tells the truth at all costs makes him a powerful witness in court. With detective Rose Cheney, Synnott is investigating a rape case against the son of a powerful lawyer, and hoping for a break in the case of a jewelry store robbery. Then Synnott’s informant Dixie Peyton, an addict desperate to convince social services she is capable of looking after her young son, gives Synnott a bad tip about a bootleg DVD warehouse, which makes him look bad right at the time he is being considered for a promotion. Meanwhile, in Galway, policeman Joe Mills talks a suicide off a rooftop. The man is covered in dried blood, and Mills discovers two bodies, but not the woman the man talks of killing. Kerrigan masterfully gathers all these threads together in this powerful Irish noir that explores the moral dilemmas faced by the police, as well as the nature of truth.

G.M. Malliet
Death and the Lit Chick (Midnight Ink 2009) takes place at Dalmorton Castle, where crime writers, publishers, and agents are staying while attending a crime writers’ conference in nearby Edinburgh. When Kimberlee Kalder, rising star of the "chick lit" mystery genre, is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just is called in to handle the investigation. Since a power outage made it impossible to lower the drawbridge over the castle’s moat the night Kimberlee was killed, it is clear, in the best Agatha Christie style, that the person who left her broken body in the dungeon is either a guest or a staff member. Motive isn’t in short supply since everyone has a reason for despising Kimberlee, and the interrogations with the writers, who can’t seem to stop using their imaginations while describing their movements on the night of the crime, muddy the field of opportunity. St. Just suspects everyone, except perhaps Portia De’Ath, who has captured his heart. Malliet has a great time lampooning the mystery writing industry (Why do serial killers always think in italics?) as St. Just struggles to unravel the complex maze of clues and red herrings. This witty traditional mystery, second in the series, is a finalist for the 2010 Anthony Award for Best Paperback.

Val McDermid
A Darker Domain (2008) features Detective Inspector Karen Pirie, the newly appointed head of the Cold Case squad in Fife, Scotland. Karen isn’t good at sitting behind her desk, which is where her boss expects her to be, and can’t resist taking on the investigation of a man who disappeared during the 1984 miners’ strike. Everyone assumed that Mick Prentice went with a group scabbing to Nottingham, but when his daughter decides to track him down nearly 25 years later, the group insists Mick didn’t leave with them. Knowing her boss won’t approve the investigation, Karen works quietly behind the scenes until investigative journalist Bel Richmond finds new evidence in the 1985 kidnapping by anarchists of the daughter of Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant’s daughter Catriona and infant grandson Adam. Catriona was killed in the ransom exchange, but no sign was ever found of baby Adam. Cleverly shunting funds for the missing miner investigation from that of the wealthy heir, Karen’s dual investigations slowly converge toward a surprising conclusion. Juxtaposition of the police resources available to the poor and the rich against the background of the suffering endured by the miners and their families during the strike add to the interest of this well-written thriller.

S.J. Rozan
The Shanghai Moon (Minotaur 2009) finds New York private eye Lydia Chin on her own since her partner Bill Smith is recovering from the emotional repercussions of their last case. Lydia’s former mentor Joel Pilarsky hires Lydia to help on a case with ties to the Chinese community. Alice Fairchild, a Swiss lawyer specializing in the recovery of Holocaust assets, believes that a corrupt Chinese official has stolen a recently unearthed jewel box and is trying to sell the jewels in New York’s Chinatown. The jewels belonged to Rosalie Gilder, who fled Austria in 1938 for Shanghai. Discovering a collection of letters from Rosalie to her mother, who didn’t make it out of Austria, Lydia becomes obsessed with the story of Rosalie’s life. Rumors that a fabulous jewel worth millions, the Shanghai Moon, was part of Rosalie’s collection add to the mystery. Bill reappears to help Lydia with the investigation, and the two uncover hints of betrayal both during the Japanese invasion of Shanghai sixty years earlier and in the present. Suspenseful, multi-layered, and deeply satisfying, this 9th book in the series is a finalist for the 2010 Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Awards for Best Novel.

Peter Steiner
Le Crime (2008) [originally published as A French Country Murder (2003)] opens with Louis Morgon finding a dead body on the doorstep of his refuge in a rural French village. He quickly determines it is a message that it will be harder to escape his past than he’d thought. Morgon was a brilliant and rising young thinker in the US State Department, eventually liaison with the CIA, and an operative in the Middle East. Two decades before, when his rapid rise was terminated without good cause, and as his marriage and family fell apart, Morgon headed to France to sort things out. While following an old pilgrimage route, he stumbles on the small village whose environment and people captivate him: neighbors Solesmne, a graceful, intriguing woman with a spinal deformity, and Renard, the local gendarme, and his family. As events develop, Morgon’s past sweeps his new friends into his world of intrigue, lies, and death. Steiner’s writing is careful and concise, with unexpected philosophical ruminations and complex character development. Travelogue is balanced with spy stuff, and Morgon, the gentle, philosophical, amateur painter, shows he still has the skills of a master CIA operative. The books in the series need to be read in order: L’Assassin (2008) continues the story of Morgon’s attempts to find peace in rural France, followed by the third book in the series — The Terrorist — which was released in late May. (We will be giving away three signed copies of this book in our next Newsletter.)

Jacqueline Winspear
Among the Mad (Henry Holt 2009) begins on Christmas Eve 1931 when Masie Dobbs, a private investigator and psychologist in London, walks by an ex-soldier missing a leg. Sensing the man is desperate, Masie reaches out to him, but he detonates a grenade and kills himself. The next day the Prime Minister receives a letter threatening violence unless the government does something to help the impoverished, especially unemployed veterans. Since the letter mentions Masie by name, Inspector Stratton of Scotland Yard request her help with the investigation. Masie suspects that the threat comes from a man haunted by experiences in the war, who feels abandoned rather than supported by society upon his return home. A former war nurse, Masie has great sympathy for the veterans suffering emotional damage who are ineligible for the pensions, services, and benefits provided for physically injured veterans. Some of the darkest images in this historical mystery come from Masie’s visits to insane asylums, as she learns about the uncertain outcomes of the treatments provided to patients. Contrasting Masie’s exploration of the psychological trauma of war is the story of her assistant Billy’s wife, who is unable to escape the melancholia that overcame her at the death of their youngest child. Masie continues to confront her own war ghosts in this mesmerizing 6th in the series, a finalist for the 2010 Macavity Award for Best Historical Novel.

Emily Arsenault
The Broken Teaglass (Delacorte 2009) is the story of a secret hidden in the citation files of the Samuelson Company, a respected dictionary publisher in Claxton, Massachusetts. Billy Webb, a recent graduate with a degree in philosophy, takes a job as a lexicographer-in-training at Samuelson as a last resort. Mona Minot takes pity on Billy and helps him navigate the intricacies of preparing for the next dictionary edition, including answering letters from the public about words, and maintaining the citation files: clippings from books, magazines, and newspapers that demonstrate the usage of words and provide the basis for including new words or new usages of old words in the next edition. As Mona is showing Billy the citation files for “editrix” in order to answer a letter inquiring about the proper plural form of the word, they stumble across a citation from a book called The Broken Teaglass, by Dolores Beekmin, that seems odd to Billy. It is much longer that the normal citation and mentions citations, cubicles, and editors. In fact, it seems to take place at Samuelson, or another dictionary company. The two quickly discover that no such book exists, but stumble across more citations, which begin to read like a confession by a former employee of involvement in a deadly secret, perhaps a murder. This quirky debut mystery, full of fascinating insights into the constantly changing meaning of words and the lexicographers who define them, is also a coming-of-age novel featuring complex characters whose story is told with wit and humor.

Benjamin Black (John Banville)
Elegy for April (Henry Holt 2010) is the third in the Quirke series, following the ups and downs and indeterminate investigations of a Dublin pathologist in the mid-1950s. Quirke was sober for most of the second book, but now, some months later, he is drying out at St. John’s Hospital. Things are still rocky with his 23-year-old daughter Phoebe, who thought most of her life that Malachy and Sarah Griffin were her parents, only to find out that when Quirke’s wife died in childbirth she was given to her aunt and uncle. Phoebe and Quirke meet for lunch once a week, where Quirke permits himself just a dash of chablis, and carry on their fractured father-daughter relationship. Now Phoebe’s friend, the “young doctor” April Latimer (black sheep of the prominent Latimers) has gone missing, and the “little band” of five close friends, including the actress Isabell, newsman Jimmy, and another young doctor, Patrick Okumwe a Nigerian, are potentially involved. Complications arise when Quirke tries to get information from the dysfunctional Latimer family, and secrets begin to emerge. Hackett, the shabby Garda inspector, again is enlisted in a semi-official role as Quirke tenaciously pursues the investigation. The characters are interesting, and the novel is suffused with a noirish Dublin and its weather. The writing is brilliant — Black-Banville’s sentences are crafted with care, and enlivened with quirky language on every page. All is not noir, as we find Quirke deciding to buy a hand-crafted luxury car and finally learn how to drive.

Harry Dolan
Bad Things Happen (Putnam 2009) is the story of a man who calls himself David Loogan, in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Loogan is escaping from some unknown violence in his past and lives an aimless solitary life until picking up a short story magazine called Gray Streets. Bitten by the writing bug, Loogan composes a short story about a man with a fear of parking lots and anonymously pushes a copy through the mail slot at the magazine office. Several days later, Loogan revises his story and again pushes it through the slot. The third time he is surprised to find the magazine’s owner, Tom Kristoll, waiting on the other side of the mail slot. Kristoll offers Loogan a job as an editor, and the two become friends. Loogan comes out of his shell a bit, mixing with other writers and beginning an affair with Tom’s wife Laura. When Kristoll asks Loogan to help him bury a body, bad things begin to happen, and Loogan finds himself the main suspect when Tom is murdered. Loogan is an amazing character — smart, cynical, mysterious, and loyal to a fault. Elizabeth Waishkey, the detective assigned to the murder, isn’t sure what to make of Loogan, and he isn’t sure that he can trust her to find the truth on her own. The two establish an uneasy truce, sharing carefully selected facts with each other while conducting parallel investigations. Perfectly nuanced dialog, a multi-layered twisting plot, clever literary references, and beautiful prose make this debut novel a standout.

Barbara Fister
In the Wind (Minotaur 2008) introduces Anni Koskinen, who left her beloved job on the Chicago police force after being ostracized following her testimony against a fellow cop for brutality. Anni spends most of her time wondering what to do with her life and renovating her house, but takes an occasional job as a private detective, mainly tracking down 17-year-old Sophie, the bipolar daughter of her oldest friend, FBI agent Jim Tilquist, who often hits the streets during a manic phase. When the local priest asks Anni to take Rosa Saenz, one of his community volunteers, to Minnesota, Anni agrees. Unfortunately, the FBI believes that Rosa has been in hiding for thirty years after killing an FBI agent in 1972 while she was a member of Ishkode, a militant splinter group of the American Indian Movement. After discovering that the murdered FBI agent was Jim Tilquist’s father, Anni wants nothing to do with the investigation, though the evidence suggests that Rosa was not the killer. But Sophie, convinced that Rosa is a martyr, leaps to her defense, and Jim tells Anni he needs to know the truth about his father’s death. Anni begins to go through the old evidence, putting herself and those she loves in danger. Anni is an engaging and complicated character: prickly, independent, and loyal to a fault. Solid supporting characters, an intricate plot, and uncomfortable parallels between post-9/11 and Vietnam-era civil liberty issues cause this well-written novel to linger after the final page.

Jason Goodwin
The Bellini Card (2008), 3rd in the Yashim Togalu series, takes place in 1840. The young Turkish sultan Abdülmecid tells Yashim, the court eunuch who helped his father get to the truth in many palace intrigues, that a portrait by Bellini of Abdülmecid’s ancestor, Mehmet the Conqueror, which vanished from Istanbul many years ago, has resurfaced in Venice. Abdülmecid orders Yashim to Venice to find the portrait, but his vizier Resid strongly counsels Yashim to stay home. Yashim disguises his friend Stanislaw Palewski, the Polish ambassador to Istanbul, as an American art collector and sends him to Venice in his stead. After discovering the body of a murdered art dealer in a canal upon his arrival in Venice, Palewski is soon out-maneuvered by various Venetian schemers and becomes a person of interest to the police. Yashim comes to the rescue and matches wits with the plotters, fights a heroic battle with his kitchen knife, rescues the innocent, and cooks a magnificent Turkish feast for his host family in this humorous and highly engaging historical mystery, recently released in paperback by Picador.

Michael Koryta
The Silent Hour (Minotaur 2009) finds Cleveland PI Lincoln Perry trying to adjust to life without his partner Joe Pritchard, who is spending the winter in Florida and talking about retiring. Lincoln doesn’t have much of a caseload, but the letters he receives from Parker Harrison, a convicted murder who has served his time, go straight into the trash. Then Parker appears at the office door, and convinces the distrustful Lincoln to search for Alexandra Cantrell, who disappeared with her husband Joshua 12 years ago. The Cantrells gave Parker a job as a gardener when he was paroled, and the sight of the beautiful house abandoned to the elements captures Lincoln’s interest. When Joshua’s bones are found buried in the woods and Alexandra is revealed to be the sister of a notorious mobster, Lincoln fears that he may be again exposing those he loves to danger. The plot is intricate and compelling, but Lincoln is the true star of this book, the 4th in the series, as he struggles to balance his need for the stimulation of investigative work with his compulsion to protect his friends.

L.J. Sellers
The Sex Club (Spellbinder 2007) opens during the examination of a young girl at a birth control clinic in Eugene, Oregon, by nurse Kera Kollmorgan. Jessie says she is 16, but Kera suspects she is younger and tries to determine if the sex is consensual. In her hurry to leave, Jessie leaves her phone behind, right before a pipe bomb explodes, leaving Kera with minor injuries and another client with serious ones. Wade Jackson, a homicide detective between cases, is assigned to the bombing. When Jessie’s body is found in a dumpster the next day, Jackson is horrified to identify her as a friend of his own daughter. Kera, conflicted by the client confidentiality policy that prevents her from talking to the police, uses information on Jessie’s phone to begin her own investigation, and discovers that the Teen Talk Bible Club Jessie belonged to may actually be a weekly sex club. Autopsy information leads Jackson to the clinic with an official request for Jessie’s file, and Kera is able to turn over Jessie’s phone and help Jackson search for the truth. When Jackson finds a possible link to the mayor, he has to fight power politics and put his career on the line to pursue the investigation. Meanwhile, the clinic bomber continues her plan to destroy the building and staff that she sees as a threat to her children, and the children of others in her church. This debut police procedural exposing the dangers of removing sex education from middle schools is a compelling suspense story featuring fully-realized characters.

Dennis Tafoya
Dope Thief (Minotaur 2009) is the story of Ray, who has a great scam going with Manny, his best friend since they met in juvie 20 years earlier. With the help of some fake badges and a couple of DEA windbreakers from the second-hand store, Ray and Manny rip off small-time drug dealers by posing as federal agents. All goes well until the day they score far more cash than they’ve ever seen in their lives. In their haste to escape the scene, Ray drops a walkie-talkie and the cold threatening voice that emerges from Ray’s pocket scares the two into almost deciding to return the money. But the discovery that a hit man is already on their trail convinces them that compliance isn’t an option; it’s kill or be killed. Ray and Manny are completely out of their league; these are serious bad guys. Worried about the safety of anyone close to them, Ray tries to transform himself into a hunter rather than prey. As he struggles to deal with the situation, Ray’s past is slowly revealed: the death of the girl he loved and lost, and the difficulty of escaping from the entanglements of a criminal environment. Sustained by dreams of a relationship with a woman working at a bookstore, Ray decides to reinvent himself if he can somehow escape being murdered. Complex characters, a dark sense of humor, and an action-packed plot make this well-written debut thriller something special.

Jeri Westerson
Serpent in the Thorns (Minotaur 2009) is the 2nd in the series featuring Crispin Guest, a disgraced knight in 1384 London, now known as Tracker for his ability to find the truth. A simple-minded girl working at a tavern comes to Crispin confessing to a murder of an unknown man. In her room Crispin discovers the body of a man killed with a crossbow, but the confused girl insists she must have killed him since no one else was there. With the body Crispin finds a golden box containing a crown of thorns, a holy relic sent to King Richard from the French king as a peace offering. Sure that returning the relic along with the identity of the assassin will convince the king to restore his lands and title, Crispin hides it in his room and sets out in search of the killer. Unfortunately Crispin’s prime suspect is Miles Aleyn, the king’s Captain of the Archers, a powerful man above the reach of a disgraced knight without definite proof. Assisting Crispin is young Jack, a thief Crispin has rescued from the streets. Jack can’t quite leave his thieving ways behind, but he is determined to help his master find the truth. Crispin’s struggle to adapt to his new circumstances is enhanced by his developing relationships with lower class people like Jack and friends who own a tavern, people below the notice of a titled knight, people who like him for the person he is rather than what he owns. This action-packed mystery was a finalist for the 2010 Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Last Rituals (William Morrow 2007) introduces Thóra Gudmundsdottir, a lawyer in Reykjavik, Iceland. When the body of a young German student, Harald Guntlieb, is found, his eyes have been gouged out and strange symbols have been carved into his chest. The police make an arrest, but the student’s family isn’t sure they have arrested the right man, and ask Thóra, who studied in Germany with a friend of the family, to go over the case again. Thóra isn’t sure she’s the right person for the job, but as a struggling single parent she can’t say no to the money. The Guntlieb family sends Matthew Reich, an experienced Munich investigator, to Iceland to help Thóra with the investigation. Thóra and Matthew discover that Harald came to Iceland to study witch hunts, which in Iceland targeted men rather than women for torture and execution. They are soon convinced that Harold’s murder has more to do with his research than a drug deal gone bad. Thora is an appealing protagonist, successfully juggling her family obligations as she gets caught up in the intricacies of the investigation. The Icelandic setting is well portrayed: a cold and bleak landscape that Thóra finds beautiful and Matthew a bit frightening, and the ingrown relationships in a closed society with a small population, where Thóra knows she can’t escape running into an old boyfriend or two. Despite the gruesome descriptions of medieval torture, this debut mystery has a light touch.

S.J. Bolton
Awakening (Minotaur 2009) is the story of Clara Benning, a wild animal vet with a disfiguring facial scar. Clara has taken a job at the Little Order of St. Francis wildlife rescue center in a small village in Dorset, England, hoping the isolated spot will provide the privacy she craves. A frantic neighbor calls Clara for help when she discovers a snake in her baby’s crib. Clara rescues the baby from the adder and quickly retreats to her surgery. The next night Clara wakens to screaming — a village house is overrun by snakes. Clara isn’t too concerned at first since they seem to be harmless grass snakes, and begins capturing them for later release. Everything changes when Clara spots a large snake she fears may be an Australian taipan, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. With the help of Matt Hoare, the Assistant Chief Constable, Clara captures the taipan, and delivers it to Sean North, an eccentric herpetologist with a popular TV show, who identifies it as an even more deadly variety native to Papua New Guinea. When two elderly villagers die from snake bite, Clara finds herself a person of interest to the police since she was the last to visit them. Throwing herself into an investigation to clear her name, Clara begins to untangle a web of secrets going back for generations. This deliciously creepy gothic suspense novel won the 2010 Mary Higgins Clark Award.

David Cristofano
The Girl She Used To Be (Grand Central 2009) is the story of Melody Grace McCartney, a witness with her parents to a mob hit by Tony Bovaro when she was six years old. After 20 years in the Federal Witness Protection Program, living under eight different aliases, Melody no longer knows who she really is. Alone since her parents were killed 12 years earlier, Melody craves connection and stability, but knows she is doomed to living under a series of forgettable aliases in unmemorable small towns across the country. The only comfort Melody has is her love for the certainty of mathematics, and her powerful baby monitor receiver that picks up the sound of a family she will never have. Bored with her current persona, Melody pretends to get a threatening phone call in order to connect with her caseworker, her only constant in the last 20 years. But retirement has given her a new bodyguard, US Deputy Marshall Sean Douglas. During their journey from Maryland to Wisconsin, Melody, now renamed Melissa, shares her life story with Sean, revealing the girl she used to be and never can be again. Then Tony Bovaro’s son Jonathan tracks her down and offers a future she never imagined. This compulsively readable debut novel was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Hallie Ephron
Never Tell a Lie (William Morrow 2009) is the story of Ivy Rose, who is inspired by the final month of her pregnancy to clear out everything left behind by the previous owners of their Victorian house in Brush Hills, Massachusetts. Ivy, whose previous pregnancy ended in a late-term miscarriage, is consumed with worries about delivering a healthy baby. As Ivy and her husband David are busy at their yard sale, a very pregnant woman identifies herself as Melinda White, a former high school classmate. Ivy vaguely remembers Melinda as an unpopular outcast and is uncomfortable with her increasingly personal questions about pregnancy and the house, which Melinda says she often visited as a child. Relieved when David takes Melinda inside for a tour, Ivy forgets all about her until the police appear several days later investigating Melinda’s disappearance. The yard sale is the last place Melinda was seen, and David is soon the prime suspect. As the evidence mounts against David, Ivy begins to wonder if their perfect romance has a solid foundation after all, and is drawn into doing some investigation of her own to find out the truth. This quick-moving and suspenseful novel was a finalist for the 2010 Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Alicia Giménez-Bartlett
Death Rites (Europa 2008) [Ritos de muerte (Spain 1996), translated by Jonathan Dunne] introduces Petra Delicado, a police inspector in Barcelona, Spain. Petra, a former lawyer now admired for her organizational skills in the admistration department, is assigned to a rape case since the department is short-handed. Petra’s partner on the case is Fermín Garzón, a recently transferred sergeant approaching retirement age. Petra has just moved into a tiny house with a garden after a divorce from her young husband Pepe, who often appears without warning on her doorstop offering to help with chores. Petra is also in the process of freeing herself from the last tie with her first husband Hugo, a successful lawyer in the firm Petra deserted when she left Hugo. Unused to the demands of a police investigation, Petra at first resents the case intruding upon the peace and quiet she expected from her new home and single status, but a second rape with similar characteristics stimulates her interest. The developing relationship between the compliant and courteous Garzón and the prickly yet philosophical Petra is the true heart of this debut police procedural.

Tarquin Hall
The Case of the Missing Servant (Simon & Schuster 2009) introduces Vish Puri, the portly Punjabi founder of Most Private Investigators Ltd., a detective agency in Delhi, India. Puri’s current case is the disappearance of a maid named Mary from the household of Ajay Kasliwal, a lawyer who targets corrupt government officials. A rumor is circulating that Kasliwal killed the maid after getting her pregnant, and Kasliwal is convince the smear campaign is retribution for his campaign against corruption. The only way to clear his name is to find the missing maid. But finding Mary won’t be easy, since Kasliwal’s wife wasn’t interested enough in a mere servant to find out her last name or her home village. The observant Puri is called “The Sherlock Holmes of India,” a compliment that irritates him since he believes Holmes’s deductive techniques were based on those established by Chanakya in India thousands of years earlier. Puri combines these traditional methods with modern techniques, supported by his understanding of human nature and a vast network of friends and relations. Puri, “Boss” to his employees and “Chubby” to his family and friends, is a thoroughly likable protagonist, cleverly ferreting out information while secretly consuming the greasy Indian snacks forbidden by his anxious wife. Puri’s often bumbling undercover operatives plus his widowed mother who is determined to do some sleuthing of her own, add to the fun in this humorous debut mystery set in the hustle and bustle of modern Delhi, full of vivid colors and the mouth-watering scents of spicy dishes.

John Hart
The Last Child (Minotaur 2009) is the story of a North Carolina family’s anguish after the disappearance of a child. A year ago 13-year-old Johnny Merrimon had a happy life with his twin sister Alyssa and his loving parents. But then Alyssa vanished on her way home, last seen being pulled into a white van. Johnny’s mother blamed his father since he had forgotten to pick her up, and his father deserted the family and disappeared a few weeks after Alyssa. Now Johnny’s mother has retreated into the oblivion provided by alcohol and drugs, and Johnny is unable to protect her or himself from Ken, his father’s former boss and now his mother’s abusive lover. But Johnny hasn’t given up the search for his sister, and often skips out of school to continue his meticulous house-to-house search and his watch on the local registered sex offenders. Detective Clyde Hunt hasn’t given up the search either, though his obsession with the missing girl has cost him his marriage and nearly destroyed his relationship with his own son. Then another young girl goes missing, and the entire community experiences the loss of a child all over again. This powerful and emotionally wrenching novel full of multi-layered characters struggling with love, loss, obsession, and betrayal was awarded the 2009 Steel Dagger Award and the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Mystery.

Suzette A. Hill
A Load of Old Bones (2005) introduces the Reverend Francis Oughterard, vicar of Molehill, in 1950s Surrey, England. Exhausted by his efforts to be the hearty and dynamic leader the Bishop favors, Francis is relieved to find that his banishment to the sleepy village of Molehill may actually suit him perfectly. There are only two parishioners the vicar finds difficult: the predatory widow Elizabeth Fotherington who has decided to pursue him, and the banker Reginald Bowler who views him as a rival. Francis finds them both extremely tiresome and often resorts to solitary rambles in the woods. The morning his vacation begins, Francis is distressed to find that Elizabeth has followed him into the woods and insists on making conversation. Overcome by an uncontrollable impulse, Francis strangles her with her own scarf and flees. Upon his return, Francis finds that Elizabeth’s supercilious cat Maurice has moved in, and that he has become a person of interest to the police. Then Reginald absconds with the bank’s funds, leaving his bone-obsessed dog Bouncer homeless. Bouncer also inserts himself into the vicar’s household and joins forces with Maurice to protect the bumbling Francis from incriminating himself, so that they can continue to enjoy their comfortable new home. Luckily for the absent-minded vicar, Maurice and Bouncer are far shrewder than he is. Narrated in alternate chapters by the vicar, Maurice, and Bouncer, this dryly humorous debut mystery cleverly presents three distinct perspectives on the same reality.

Charlie Huston
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (Ballantine 2009) is the very strange story of former Los Angeles elementary school teacher Web Goodhue. For reasons that become clear later, we meet Web in his total slacker phase, leeching off his friend Chev, who runs a tattoo parlor, and the occasional donations from his hippie mother, who grows blackberries and marijuana in Oregon. Just as Chev reaches the end of his generosity, Po Sin, owner of a crime scene cleanup business, offers Web a job. Web’s first experience as a member of the Clean Team is the home of a old man who was dead for far too long before his body was discovered, followed by that of a man who blew his brains all over the room with a large caliber gun. Web’s monologue to himself while cleaning the bathroom startles the man’s daughter, Soledad, into shocked laughter. The two trade sort-of-friendly insults until Po Sin hauls Web back to the serious business of learning the mystic arts of erasing all signs of death. When Soledad calls Web later asking for help cleaning up a hotel room covered with blood, Web finds himself in the midst of a tangled mess of smuggling and kidnapping. Told mainly in amazing realistic dialog, Web’s narration slowly reveals the secrets of his past as he struggles to get a handle on the present. The supporting cast includes some scary yet amusing bad guys and Soledad’s astoundingly dim-witted brother. This unsettling, morbidly funny, surprisingly hopeful, and very original book was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Natsuo Kirino
Real World (Knopf 2008) [Riaru warudo (Japan 2003), translated by Philip Gabriel] explores the teenage wasteland from the viewpoint of four girls and one boy, all high school seniors during midsummer vacation in Tokyo. For most of them, life revolves around cram school to get into college, and finding air conditioned refuge from the stifling heat. Toshi’s neighbor, a boy she’s nicknamed Worm, has committed a terrible crime and is now on the run. But this is the age of cell phones and text messaging, so the girls keep track of Worm and one another as events unfold. Each of the five kids alternatively tells part of the story. The book moves along with trendy dialog in this smart translation, and the characters feel authentic -- admittedly based on what one thinks one knows about Japanese teenage girls at the millennium. Kirino creates a convincing world where teenagers reign supreme, where parents and other adults are just shadowy figures or recurring annoyances. The girls slot into several types, the ordinary and obedient one, the serious student, the chronically depressed, the incipient lesbian. The plot moves along typically through one or two innocuous whims, and a failure to answer a harmless question can set a course to more serious consequences. This short, contemporary teen-noir is a fascinating read, and we hope more of Kirino’s works will be translated into English.

Matt Beynon Rees
The Fourth Assassin (Soho 2010) is the fourth book in the series featuring Omar Yussef Sirhan, a 50-something teacher at a United Nations school in a Palestinian refugee camp. This book is a change of pace, however, as we find Omar Yussef traveling to New York for a conference at the UN, as well as to visit his youngest son Ala, who is living in the “Little Palestine” community of Brooklyn. His trip away from the violence of Palestine, explored so well in the first three books, gets off to a rocky start when Omar Yussef discovers the decapitated body of one of his son’s roommates. Ala is arrested and refuses to provide an alibi, so as not to shame his girlfriend. Omar Yussef is particularly close to the situation, since he had known and taught the young men when they were boys back home; and he remembers their then-harmless boys’ club, called The Assassins, which now takes on more ominous tones. Nor can the tensions and rivalries of Palestine be left behind, as Omar Yussef soon discovers at the UN, where we also meet up with his old friend, Khamis Zeydan, the police chief of Bethlehem, serving as chief of security for the Palestinian president. Despite some over-the-top thriller aspects, readers following the ever-challenging exploits of Omar Yussef will again want to come along for the ride.

Norman Green
The Last Gig (Minotaur 2009) introduces Alessandra (Al) Martillo, a young woman of Puerto Rican heritage who grew up in the Brownsville projects and the streets of New York City. Rescued from the streets by Tio Bobby, Al is struggling with her Affection Deficit Disorder while working as an assistant to Marty Stiles, an ex-NYPD cop turned PI. An Irish mobster hires Al through Marty to find whoever is setting him up for a fall and Al gets interested in the death of the mobster’s son from a drug overdose. A connection between the dead son and a rock star leads Al into the music world. Al isn’t exactly sure where her investigation is leading her, but knows she must be getting close to something since she is tailed, threatened, and beaten up. Tough, smart, wary, and nearly indestructible, Al is a throwback to the hard-boiled PIs of yore. Endearing despite her lethal nature, Al is an enjoyable protagonist who will reappear in the second in the series, Sick Like That, due March 30th.

Russell Hill
The Lord God Bird (Caravel Books 2009) is the story of Jake Hamrick, who has been obsessed with birds for most of his life. In 1944, at the age of 19, Jake finds his soul-mate, Robin, who eagerly embraces his quest to head south from Chicago in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker, known locally as the Lord God Bird. In the deep woods along the Louisiana border, they find a primitive cottage and begin to search the bayous. Robin shaves most of her hair except a topknot she dyes red, and transforms herself into a woodpecker in order to entice the elusive birds. When the strange girl/bird is discovered by local hunters, violence erupts and Jake and Robin find themselves on the run. Full of dark images of the south in the late 1940s, this book explores themes of alienation, love, obsession, and loss. Written in beautifully poetic prose, this haunting novella is a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Paperback.

Chris Knopf
The Last Refuge (2005) introduces Sam Acquillo, a 50-something, retired engineer, in Southampton, Long Island, New York. After Sam quits his job, his wife divorced him, his daughter stopped speaking to him, and he retreated to his parents’ old cottage on Little Peconic Bay, content to brood and drink vodka on the porch with Eddie, his canine companion. One day he realizes that his unpleasant elderly neighbor, Regina Broadhurst, hasn’t bothered him for several days. A bad smell leads Sam to her decomposing body face down in the bathtub. Sam’s engineer perspective alerts him to clues the police missed, and at local cop Joe Sullivan’s suggestion, Sam volunteers to become the executor of the estate and locate the next-of-kin. His search uncovers conflict between the local working class and the rich newcomers eager to capitalize on their investments. Sam is a prickly yet engaging protagonist, slowly reengaging with the world as he struggles to solve the mystery surrounding Regina’s death, which no one else seems to care about. Snappy dialog, a wry sense of humor, and a complex plot in a beautiful setting combine to make this debut novel something special.

Ed Lin
Snakes Can’t Run (Minotaur 2010) is the second Robert Chow novel, following the travails of a Chinatown beat cop in 1976 New York City. The first book, This Is a Bust (2007), had a thin detective/mystery thread and a lot of fascinating local color, post-Vietnam War angst, and resentment over his status as the 5th Precinct token, condemned to a hell of attending community events to show how progressive the NYPD is. Robert wants to be a detective, but with his beer-for-breakfast routine and attitude problems, it seems unlikely he’ll ever be more than a disappointment to himself and his family. In the second book, still in 1976, Robert, born in the US and named after Robert Mitchum, is fighting the same battles, but doing better on most fronts: he’s in his third month of sobriety, he’s on the detective track paired with his former beat partner and fellow Vietnam vet, a black detective named John Vandyne, and he has a steady girlfriend. Chow and Vandyne are after the “snakehead” human smugglers after two Fukienese bodies turn up in the East River. The books is replete with smart dialogue and fascinating snippets of life in Chinatown, a complex stew of competing political cultures (Nationalist, Communist, Hong Kong) and regional/historical subgroups (Cantonese, Fukienese, Hong Kong, Shanghainese, etc.). The recurring characters are interesting and their relationships continue to develop. As the author says, this book, set in America’s bicentennial year, is not just about Chinese-Americans, but about Americans in America.

John McEvoy
Blind Switch (Poisoned Pen 2004) introduces Jack Doyle, an ad-man in Chicago, Illinois, who arrives at work one day to discover that his desk and his job are gone. While sharing his tale of woe with Moe Kellman, an acquaintance at the gym, Doyle is amazed to find himself offered $25,000 to help fix a horse race. Doyle finds that working for a trainer is not as bad as he feared, and actually becomes quite fond of the horses. A month later, the fix completed, Doyle is robbed of both the race-fixing payoff and his betting wins on his way home from the racetrack. Again unemployed, broke, and feeling soiled by his experience, Doyle receives a visit from two FBI agents, who offer to forget about his crime if he helps them identify those responsible for maiming and killing racehorses for their insurance value. Realizing he has no choice, Doyle takes a job on the estate of Harvey Rexroth, an eccentric and ruthless media mogul who has entered the world of horse racing. Doyle is an appealing protagonist as he struggles with his own less-than-perfect nature in order to protect the horses in his charge and the fellow workers he comes to respect. The Significant Seven, 3rd in the series, was released April 1st.

Miyuki Miyabe
The Devil’s Whisper (2007) [translation of Majutsu wa sasayaku] is a non-series novel from 1989 by “Japan’s #1 Bestselling Mystery Writer” which follows teenager Mamoru Kusaka as he tries to exonerate his uncle Taizo, a Tokyo taxi driver being held for running over and killing a young woman late one night. In spare and unrelenting prose, the author weaves several threads together, as links are discovered between the deaths of several other young women originally classed as suicides. Mamoru has turned out quite well, considering the ostracism he suffered as a child when his father disappeared with embezzled public funds. After his mother died in rural Japan, Mamoru came to Tokyo to live with his Aunt Yoriko, but his past leads to abuse in school, while helping make him independent and resourceful. Miyabe builds the suspense from multiple first-person accounts and skillfully hints at forces unimagined by the young protagonist. This is the earliest Miyabe novel to appear in English, and well-worth reading, particularly for a change of pace. The Sleeping Dragon (2010) [translation of Ryu wa nemuru (1991)] is the 5th and most recent Miyabe title translated into English.

Stefanie Pintoff
In the Shadow of Gotham (Minotaur 2009) introduces Simon Ziele, a police detective who lost his fiancee and the full use of his right arm in the 1904 wreck of the steamship General Slocum. Ziele has relocated from New York City to the town of Dobson, hoping for a quieter existence and time to recover from his loss, but the brutal and bloody murder of young mathematics student Sarah Wingate shatters his peaceful retreat. The investigation has barely begun when Ziele receives a communication from Alistair Sinclair, a professor at Columbia University, claiming to know the identity of the killer. Sinclair has created a new department to study the emerging science of criminology based on the controversial theories of Dr. Hans Gross, and fears that Michael Fromley, a former research subject with violent tendencies, may have acted on his fantasies of killing young blond women. Excellent historical details, vivid characters, and a strong plot enliven this combination of police procedural and the beginnings of forensic science. This debut novel is a finalist for both the Agatha and Edgar Awards for Best First Novel, and won the first Minotaur Books/MWA Best First Crime Novel Award.

Misa Ramirez
Living the Vida Lola (Minotaur 2009) introduces Lola Cruz, a budding private investigator at Camacho and Associates, in Sacramento, California. Lola, who shares a flat with her brother Antonio above the restaurant and living quarters of her parents and grandfather, loves her close-knit family but longs for more freedom, especially after reconnecting with Jack Callaghan, her unrequited lust from high school. Lola’s family isn’t crazy about her job as a private investigator, and her mother firmly believes Lola should be concentrating on more important tasks, like helping prepare for her cousin’s quinceañera. But Lola has finally earned the right to run the investigation of her first case, the disappearance of 42-year old Emily Diga, who left her 6-year old son stranded at school. Before long, Emily’s body turns up in the river and Lola’s life has been threatened. Lola spends as much time obsessing about the sex she isn’t having as she does investigating her case, but her sassy narration enlivens this debut novel. Hasta la Vista, Lola!, the 2nd in the series, was released in February.

Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
One for Sorrow (Poisoned Pen 1999) introduces John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian in Byzantium (Constantinople), capitol of the 6th century Roman Empire. When Leukos, the palace Keeper of the Plate, is found murdered in an alley, the emperor asks John to investigate. Leukos had consulted a traveling soothsayer the night of his death, and John is convinced that his death is more than a random mugging. Thomas, a knight from the court of King Arthur, has traveled to Constantinople in search of the Holy Grail, an unknown object that might be a cup or platter or stone. A guest at the same inn inhabited by the soothsayer, Thomas may be the last to have spoken to Leukos. Though the court is officially Christian, John continues to worship Mythras, the god of the soldier, and Thomas seems to also be a Mythran. Interesting characters, court intrigue, the conflict of religious beliefs, and a vivid historical setting provide a fascinating backdrop to the mystery and the unfolding of John’s own personal history. Eight for Eternity, the 8th in the series was released April 1st.

Leigh Russell
Cut Short (No Exit Press 2009) introduces Geraldine Steel, a detective inspector who relocates from London to the small town of Woolsmarsh, England, after the unhappy end of a long-term relationship. Hoping for a fresh start, Geraldine buys a flat and settles into her new job and her first case: the brutal murder of a young woman in the local park. A second murder of another young girl in the same park ups the ante as everyone confronts the realization that there may be a serial killer preying on young blond women. Geraldine’s investigative strengths are her instinct and her ability to remember all the facts, so she throws herself into long hours of poring over all the evidence. Meanwhile, the disturbed killer, growing increasingly less balanced and more violent, prowls the park. Geraldine is a complex and compelling protagonist, totally devoted to her job yet wanting more out of life. This well written debut psychological thriller maintains the suspense to the final chapter.

Elizabeth J. Duncan
The Cold Light of Mourning (Minotaur 2009) introduces Penny Brannigan, a painter, manicurist, and expatriate Canadian living in Llanelen, Wales. After nearly 25 years in Llanelen, Penny has been accepted as one of their own by the townspeople, even though she does still talk a bit funny, and her manicure shop is the clearing house for village news. Her life is settled, perhaps a bit boring, until the day that Meg Wynne Thompson disappears on the day of her wedding, immediately after having her nails done. Penny is interviewed by Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Davies, but can’t tell him much about Meg except what she was wearing and the flowers she had chosen for the wedding. It isn’t until a picture of Meg wearing her engagement ring appears in the paper that Penny realizes that the woman who had her nails done is not the missing bride. The appearance is similar, but the hands are completely different. Davies is impressed by Penny’s observations, especially after she figures out where the body was hidden. When Meg’s fiance is charged with her murder, Penny and her friend Victoria are convinced he is innocent, and decide, in the best tradition of amateur sleuths, to prove him innocent. This light traditional mystery won the 2008 Minotaur/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel competition for unpublished authors and is a finalist for the 2009 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Gillian Flynn
Dark Places (Shaye Areheart 2009), a finalist for the 2009 Steel Dagger Award, is the story of Libby Day, whose mother and two older sisters were brutally murdered. The testimony of seven-year-old Libby was enough to send her 15-year-old brother Ben to prison for life. Libby has been living off a trust funded by donations, but after 25 years the trust is nearly exhausted and Libby is desperate for money. A lonely and embittered woman, Libby has refused to think about the case, but when offered cash by the president of the Kill Club, a gathering of true crime enthusiasts who are obsessed with notorious murders, Libby agrees to speak at a meeting. She is shocked to find that the members believe her brother is innocent, though they can’t agree on who the guilty party is. After visiting her brother in jail for the first time, Libby faces the possibility that her coached testimony may have been responsible for a miscarriage of justice. Moving seamlessly from the present to the dark places of the past as Libby’s childhood memories begin to surface, this taut thriller builds tension to a surprising conclusion. Libby’s gradual emergence from the trauma that has held her from childhood is beautifully portrayed.

Heather Gudenkauf
The Weight of Silence (Mira 2009) is the story of two small girls who go missing in the very early hours of a hot August morning in Willow Creek, Iowa. Martin and Fielda Gregory are frightened when they realize seven-year old Petra is not in her bed, or the house, and immediately head to Calli Clark’s house, hoping that she is with her best friend. But Antonia Clark discovers that Calli is also missing. Antonia isn’t too worried at first, thinking that Calli is perhaps spending some time in her beloved woods next to their house, but when Antonia realizes Calli hasn’t put on her shoes, she knows something is wrong. The Gregorys begin to suspect that Calli’s drunken father or her older brother Ben may have something to do with the vanished children. As the hours slowly tick by, and no sign is seen of the missing girls, the fear that they have fallen victim to the same predator who killed another child two years earlier begins to consume the searchers. As the tension builds, chapters from the point of view of the various characters fill in the backstory of small town life, alcoholism, thwarted love, and the weight of silence which turned Calli into a selective mute four years earlier. This gripping and well written debut novel is a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Sophie Littlefield
A Bad Day for Sorry (Minotaur 2009) introduces Stella Hardesty, a 50-year-old widow who runs a sewing shop in a small town in Missouri. Stella, who killed her own abusive husband, now offers vigilante help to other abused women. Stella works hard to keep her “clients” safe and her “parolees” in line, and doesn’t argue with the inflated reputation she has built up as a woman not to be tangled with. When Chrissy Shaw hires Stella to find her nearly-ex husband, Roy Dean Shaw, who took off with Chrissy’s two-year-old son from a previous relationship, Stella doesn’t expect to find herself a target of the maybe-mafia tough guys Roy Dean is hoping to work for. Fear for her son Tucker inspires Chrissy to shake off her marshmallow persona, revealing a core of inner steel as she joins the hunt for Roy Dean and the missing toddler. Stella is a unique and engaging heroine who has no problem working outside the law, despite her mutual attraction with the local sheriff, “Goat” Jones. There is a fair amount of violence in this surprisingly humorous debut novel, a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Henning Mankell
The Fifth Woman (Swedish 1996, English 2000) is the 7th in the series featuring Kurt Wallander, an overworked police inspector in Ystad, Sweden. Wallander has just returned from vacation in Rome and is feeling rested and energized, until the discovery of a body impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes plunges him back into an exhausting murder investigation. When another man disappears, Wallander and his team fear they may have a sadistic serial killer targeting victims for reasons they cannot understand. During the slow and meticulous investigation, the police gradually find points of connection between the victims as they relentlessly work long hours to identify the killer. Wallander struggles with his own feelings of isolation as he closes in on a killer who is even more disconnected from society than he is. The complex plot and chilling psychological portrayal of the killer, plus the gradual development of Wallander as a character, combine to make this book an intelligent and thoroughly enjoyable addition to this dark, yet somehow hopeful, series.

Jeffrey Siger
Murder in Mykonos (Poisoned Pen 2009) introduces Andreas Kaldis, a former Athens homicide detective, recently banished to the island of Mykonos to serve as the new police chief. It’s the height of the tourist season, and Mykonos is teaming with young visitors eager to enjoy the all-night partying and nude sunbathing the island is known for. Andreas is just settling into his new position when a ritually bound body is discovered in an abandoned church. Murder is rare on this tourist island, but the investigation of other abandoned churches uncovers other bodies going back for years. Neither the mayor nor the powerful tourist industry want to admit that there is a serial killer at work on Mykonos, especially since foreign tourists seem to be the target, but Andreas and local homicide detective Tassos Stamatos know the secret must come out when another young tourist goes missing. The natural beauty of the island setting is juxtaposed against the inbred acceptance of locals living slightly outside the law, and the nepotism of the local power structure, while Andreas, the outsider, struggles to find the truth and to prevent another death. This debut novel maintains the suspense until the final page. Assassins of Athens, the 2nd in the series, was released in January 2010.

Phyllis Smallman
Margarita Nights (Canada 2008, US: McArthur & Company 2010) introduces Sherri Travis, a self-proclaimed "white trash" bartender in the small beach town of Jacaranda, Florida. Sherri is separated from her well connected but unreliable husband Jimmy, but hasn’t gotten around to divorcing him. When she is informed by the police that Jimmy’s boat exploded with him on it, Sherri is convinced that Jimmy is running a scam to escape yet another gambling debt. Unfortunately Sherri is the recipient of Jimmy’s life insurance, and thus the prime suspect when evidence of foul play is discovered. Sherri is a bit too inclined to suspect everyone she knows of playing a part in Jimmy’s disappearance/murder, but the self-deprecating wry humor of her narration makes this light mystery an enjoyable read. A finalist for the 2009 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, the Florida setting is lovingly portrayed by this Canadian writer.

Frank Tallis
A Death in Vienna (2006) introduces Max Liebermann, a doctor in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. Liebermann is practicing Professor Freud’s controversial new system of psychoanalysis, and a cigar-smoking joke-cracking Freud makes several cameo appearances. Valuing Liebermann’s keen observational and analytical abilities, Detective Oskar Rheinhardt asks him for help solving the case of a beautiful medium found dead on the day of her weekly seance. The woman was shot, but no gun or bullet can be found in the locked room. The mystery is interesting, but Vienna is the true star of this story. Tallis recreates a city on the edge of cultural and intellectual change and revels in the Viennese cafe scene with a seemingly limitless store of exotic coffees and pastries. This excellent historical mystery is the first in a series.

L.C. Tyler
The Herring Seller’s Apprentice (2007) introduces Ethelred Tressider, a mystery author in West Sussex, England, whose ex-wife Geraldine is found dead in a rental car near his home. Ethelred is suspicious of the suicide note, and the police are suspicious of Ethelred when his fingerprints are found on the note. Elsie Thirkettle, Ethelred’s chocoholic literary agent, leaps to Ethelred’s defense, dubbing herself the Herring Seller’s Apprentice, after Geraldine’s sarcastic nickname for Ethelred’s habit of strewing red herrings throughout his mysteries. Alternate chapters narrated by the wry, self-deprecating Ethelred, and the brash, over-confident Elsie (a literary device Elsie despises), reveal totally different views of Geraldine, but both agree that she was up to some sort of financial scam. The humor in this debut novel, a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, is clever and subtle, slyly mocking detective fiction while utilizing all the classic motifs in the best British style.

Dan Waddell
The Blood Detective (Minotaur 2008) introduces Nigel Barnes, a genealogist in London. Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster of Scotland Yard and his team are investigating a series of grisly murders. They can’t find a connection between the bodies until a series of letters and numbers is found scratched into the skin of the victims, which might be the number of a birth or death certificate. The police hire Barnes to help track down the information, and he locates the death certificate of Albert Beck, an 1879 murder victim who was killed on the same date as one of the current victims. Digging back through old newspaper archives, Barnes discovers that Beck was one of a series of five murders charged to Eke Fairbairn, and becomes convinced that Fairbairn was unjustly accused, convicted, and hanged. As more connections between the murders of 1879 and the present are discovered, Barnes and the police suspect that a modern day descendant is seeking revenge. This chilling debut novel was a finalist for both the 2009 New Blood Dagger Award and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel.

Rebecca Cantrell
A Trace of Smoke (Forge Books 2009) introduces Hannah Vogel, a 32-year old crime reporter in 1931 Berlin. As part of her weekly routine, Hannah is examining the new photographs in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead in the Alexanderplatz police station when she is horrified to see the face of her beloved younger brother, Ernst. But Hannah is trapped in silence — she can’t identify her brother since Hannah has lent both her own and Ernst’s identity papers so that her Zionist friend Sarah and her son could flee Germany. So Hannah begins to investigate on her own by visiting the club where Ernst, a cross-dressing cabaret singer, worked. Here she meets both Ernst’s much older lover and his young Nazi boyfriend, who tells Hannah Ernst also had a secret lover high in the Nazi power structure. When a small boy named Anton, who claims she is his mother, is abandoned on her doorstep, Hannah’s life grows even more complicated and dangerous. The endearing Anton, clutching his stuffed bear for comfort, imagines himself an Indian brave from the western tales of Karl May in order to deal with his reality of hunger and pain. The portrait of Berlin’s gay community, valiantly maintaining a carefree facade while on the verge of Nazi persecution, is vivid and painful. This well-researched and unforgettable debut mystery melds an intricate plot with complex characters, and has been nominated for the Bruce Alexander Award for Best Historical Mystery.

Joanne Dobson
Quieter Than Sleep (1997) introduces Karen Pelletier, an English professor in Enfield, Massachusetts, who would like nothing more than to earn tenure. Unfortunately, the Randy Astin-Berger, the head of her department, is an insufferable bore in love with the sound of his own voice. At the faculty Christmas party, Karen tunes out Randy’s monologue about a mysterious letter he has discovered. Later, Karen opens the hall closet in search of her coat, and discovers Randy’s strangled corpse. At first Lieutenant Piotrowski suspects Karen, but soon co-opts her as a police researcher when he realizes that the motive for the murder may be based in academia. Karen throws herself into retracing Randy’s research, hoping to rediscover the letter that is perhaps the motive for his murder. Karen is a likable amateur sleuth, as skilled in her form of investigation as the police are in theirs. Interesting tidbits about Emily Dickinson’s life and work add to the charm of this enjoyable mystery, a finalist for the 1997 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Charles Larson
Someone’s Death (1973) is the first in a four-book series featuring Nils-Frederik Blixen, a Los Angeles TV producer who is putting a detective series together when his casting director, 23-year-old Joanna Redfern, is arrested for killing her ex-boyfriend. Blixen is quite fond of Joanna, although she’s a little young for him, but he also needs her professional services, so he becomes the amateur sleuth. The book is full of interesting show-biz types and studio goings-on. Blixen is highly professional but has a sentimental side; he concentrates by marshaling hippo figurines on his desk. Larson (1922-2006) was an experienced TV scriptwriter and producer, and fills this nicely sized book (185 pages) with the insights of an insider and a leavening of humor. Someone’s Death was a Best First Novel finalist for the 1974 Edgar Award. We are looking forward to reading Matthew’s Hand, the second book in the series, which is partly told from the perspective of a turtle.

Patrick F. McManus
The Blight Way (Simon & Schuster 2006) introduces Bo Tully, sheriff of Blight County, Idaho. When a dead body turns up at the ranch of the often-arrested Scragg family, Bo asks his father, former sheriff “Pap” Tully, to come along and help investigate as a 75th birthday present. Bo and Pap agree that none of the Scraggs are suspects for a change, and when three more bodies are found not far from the first, Bo fears that there is a professional killer on the loose. Bo is a wonderful character with a self-deprecating sense of humor that masks his intelligence and dedication. He doesn’t let small details like search warrants and strict adherence to the letter of the law get in the way of ferreting out the truth and enforcing justice the Blight Way. A down-home guy who fits perfectly into his eccentric backwoods environment, Bo has hidden depths: a pet Hobo spider that lives behind his filing cabinet, and a talent for painting landscapes. The restrained humor of the narration erupts into occasional laugh-out-loud moments that sneak up on you: the reaction from women to the “warm look” Bo picked up from a romance novel, and the inevitable result of shoving a gun down the front of your pants after losing 20 pounds. Highly recommended for those in search of a humorous mystery with an engaging protagonist.

Bob Morris
Bahamarama (2004) introduces Zack Chasteen, a former Miami Dolphin linebacker, just released from serving two years in a Florida penitentiary. Unfortunately his girlfriend Barbara Pickering is not there to pick him up as planned. Zach is ambushed by two thugs working for Victor Ortiz, the Cuban boss who framed him. Ortiz insists that Zack has something that belongs to him, but Zach has no idea what he is talking about, and flees to the Bahamas to join Barbara who is working on a photo shoot. But Barbara’s ex-boyfriend and photographer is found murdered, Barbara has been kidnapped, and Zach finds himself helping Lynfield Pederson of the local police. Zack’s wry narration and the colorful local characters provide the perfect backdrop for the complex plot that twists and turns to a satisfying conclusion. This debut novel was a finalist for the 2005 Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel. Baja Florida, the 5th in the series, was just released by Minotaur.

Sandra Parshall
The Heat of the Moon (Poisoned Pen 2006) introduces Rachel Goddard, a 26-year-old veterinarian living with her mother, Judith, a loving but extremely controlling psychologist, and her younger sister Michelle. When a woman and her young daughter bring an injured dog to the clinic, the child’s cries remind Rachel of an incident she had forgotten, her own younger sister crying in the rain at the age of three. Judith’s unspoken rules prohibit questions about anything that happened before the family moved to McLean, Virginia, when Rachel was five, but Rachel is consumed with curiosity about her father, who died shortly before the move. As more memories emerge, Rachel begins to suspect that her mother is hiding something about her father. Her probing questions disturb both her mother and sister, but Rachel is consumed with a need to know the truth about her past. This absorbing psychological thriller was awarded the 2006 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Robert Rotenberg
Old City Hall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2009, Picador 2010) begins when Kevin Brace, Toronto’s leading radio talk show host, greets Mr. Singh, his early morning newspaper deliveryman, with bloody hands and the words, “I killed her.” The police discover the dead body of Brace’s live-in girlfriend in the bathtub, but Brace doesn’t say another word to them, or to his lawyer, or to anyone else during the long months of the investigation and preparation for the trial. Told from alternating viewpoints of police detectives Ari Greene and Daniel Kennicott, Crown assistant prosecutor Albert Fernandez, and defense attorney Nancy Parish, this combination police procedural and courtroom drama is a complicated journey to find the truth behind what appears at first to be an open-and-shut murder case. The Toronto setting with its cosmopolitan ethnic mix, bound by a common hope that this might be the year for the Maple Leafs, provides the fitting background to the rich cast of characters. Rotenberg’s knack for language comes through in unexpectedly amusing ways: Singh’s precise and pedantic speaking style, Fernandez’s confusion about multiple ways to say the same thing in English evolving into a conviction that liars use Norman words while truth tellers use Anglo-Saxon. This well-written debut novel was a finalist for the 2009 New Blood Dagger Award.

Kelli Stanley
City of Dragons (Minotaur 2010) introduces Miranda Corbie, a former Spanish Civil War nurse, ex-escort, and now private investigator in San Francisco. During the 1940 Rice Bowl Party in Chinatown to raise money to send to China for war relief, Miranda stumbles over young Eddie Takahashi, dying of a gunshot wound. When Eddie dies in her arms, Miranda feels compelled to find his killer but everyone else seems to want to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Meanwhile, a well-paying client hires Miranda to investigate the death of her husband, presumed dead of a heart attack while enjoying the favors of a prostitute. The wife is sure her husband was murdered, and that his death has something to do with the disappearance of her drug-addicted step-daughter. Living mainly on whiskey and Chesterfields, Miranda juggles both investigations while trying to cope with her loneliness after the death of her lover in Spain. Syncopated prose echoes the jazz lyrics that punctuate Miranda’s journey from nightclub to tenement to bordello in this intense series opener.

Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
The Man with the Getaway Face (1963) [APA: The Steel Hit (1971)] is the second in the long-running series featuring Parker, a professional thief, and cold-blooded killer when he needs to be. This book finds Parker getting a new face from a plastic surgeon in Nebraska in order to evade the New York Outfit, which is out to get him after things went wrong in the first book. Parker debuts his new face with a gang hitting an armored car in New Jersey. Parker’s heist plans are brilliantly detailed, but of course, he can never be 100% sure of the human element, particularly the new people, including Alma the waitress who can’t wait to double-cross and the wild-card Stubbs, the surgeon’s chauffeur, who comes after Parker. Along with the robbery, Parker has to figure out how to protect his new identity, which was the point of getting the new face to begin with. This series should be read in order from the beginning, because later books contain spoilers, but we hadn’t found the first book when starting in on the series. The Parker books, starting seven years before Westlake’s Dortmunder series, are bloody and violent capers by comparison, with a dark humor at best, but compellingly readable.

Charles Todd
A Duty to the Dead (William Morrow 2009) introduces Bess Crawford, a British army nurse in WWI who is injured when the hospital ship Britannic is sunk in 1916. Sent back to England while her arm heals, Bess decides to fulfill a promise she made to Arthur Graham, a dying officer she was half in love with. Arthur asked Bess to deliver a message in person to his brother Jonathan, telling him that Arthur had lied to protect his mother but it must be put right. Bess travels to the Graham house in Kent, delivers the message, but has an uneasy feeling that nothing will be done to fulfill Arthur’s dying request. She discovers that Arthur’s oldest brother Peregrine was committed to an asylum for killing a girl when he was 14, and fears that the mysterious message has something to do with that tragedy. Bess is determined to discover the truth she suspects the family has been hiding for many years. An independent and tenacious young woman, Bess is an engaging protagonist, fully capable of carrying this new series of historical psychological suspense.

Paul Adam
The Rainaldi Quartet (2006; APA: Sleeper 2004) introduces Gianni Castiglione, a violin maker in rural Cremona, Italy. Now widowed, the highlight of Gianni’s week is the regular gathering of friends to play string quartets. One week Tomaso Rainaldi doesn’t return home after the gathering. Gianni and cellist Antonio Guastafeste, a police detective, find Rainaldi murdered in his shop. Suspecting that the murder had something to do with a rare Stradivari violin, Guastafeste asks Gianni to help with the investigation. The two journey across Italy and to England, tracking clues and suspects and uncovering the strange history of a magnificent violin. Giann’s love for the craft of violin making suffuses the text with a warm glow, counterbalanced by his caustic comments about Italian city life. Unscrupulous dealers, obsessed collectors, complex trails of ownership, and the difficulty of distinguishing true masterpieces from fakes provide plenty of red herrings in this well-plotted and thoroughly enjoyable mystery.

Fletcher Flora
Park Avenue Tramp (1958) is a classic of minimalist existential ’50s noir. Charity McAdams Farnese walks into a bar late at night, wondering where she’s been, with whom, and what she is drinking. Yancy the bartender tells her she is a Martini, which seems to fit. Charity studies bartenders as she stumbles from bar to bar in Manhattan, finding them superior people, and better than psychiatrists. In this bar, she also finds Joe Doyle, a 5th-rate piano thumper with a bad heart. Joe’s friends don’t think he’s much to look at, but Charity thinks he’s the most beautiful guy she’s ever seen. Charity is in an “open marriage” of sorts with her idle rich husband Oliver, who follows an obsessively rigid schedule, making it simple for Charity to party and bar-hop on her own or with other dilettantes. Love for Charity has been a "corrupt" version of what she felt for her father, who died when she was a teenager. She takes up with Joe, to his detriment, for Oliver does have one talent: revenge. This unusual novel, told mostly from the interior perspectives of several characters, is a great change of pace and truly a book that’s nearly impossible to put down. As a bonus, it is currently available in a “Gold Medal Trio” edition that includes Charles Runyon’s The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed (1965) and Dan J. Marlowe’s The Vengeance Man (1966).

Deborah Grabien
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Minotaur 2009) finds JP Kincaid, guitarist for a legendary British rock group, at home in San Francisco, California, playing with a local group who are scrambling to fulfill a CD contract after their founder died suddenly. The rehearsals are going well except for the egotistic and abrasive vocalist Vinny Fabiano, who seems to thrive on conflict. JP doesn’t care much for Vinny’s vocal style, but he does covet his pearl-top Zemaitis guitar, similar to one stolen from Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. Vinny has also commissioned a new custom-made guitar from local luthier Bruno Baines. When Vinny is found dead, with his head bashed in by his new guitar, Bruno is charged with his murder since he delivered the guitar that evening. But JP can’t believe that Bruno would use his incredible creation as a murder weapon. The murder investigation at times takes a back seat to the details about guitars and their creation and the tensions and triumphs of session recording, but that doesn’t detract from the appeal of the book, ably narrated by the charming JP, still battling the symptoms of multiple sclerosis while trying to cope with the cancer diagnosis of long-time live-in girlfriend Bree.

Peter Leonard
Trust Me (Minotaur 2009) is a stand-alone caper thriller centered on retired Detroit model Karen Delaney’s struggles to retrieve $300,000 she deposited for investment with Samir, her ex-paramour. Samir is a gangster with a temper, surrounded by the usual thugs and some Arab hit-men trying to live their version of the American Dream. The scheme is set in motion when Karen co-opts some bumbling burglars who tried to rob her and restaurateur Lou Starr, her latest sugar daddy. Allegiances shift among the various factions and coincidences abound in the frantic struggles for the money. Indestructible ex-con, ex-cop O’Clair threads his way through the plot, initially working for Samir, but later focusing on his own self-interest. This is a fast-paced, rollicking tale, intricately plotted and chock full of entertaining characters, though none of them particularly admirable.

Archer Mayor
Open Season (1988) introduces Joe Gunther, a police detective in Brattleboro, Vermont. When a frightened widow kills a wealthy man searching for his lost poodle, Gunther suspects a set up. The only connection between the two is the fact that they served on the jury of a sensational rape/murder trial three years earlier. When two other jurors are involved in incidents, Gunther is sure that someone wants the case reopened, but his superiors and the town leaders are reluctant to bring the racial tensions of the case back into the public eye. Gunther begins a quiet investigation and becomes convinced that the black Vietnam vet serving time for the murder is not guilty, and that the police investigation was rushed and incomplete in order to bring a quick conclusion to the case. The cold and snowy Vermont setting is vividly portrayed and Gunther is a likable protagonist, dedicated to his job and determined to find the truth. This debut police procedural is a fine series start. The Price of Malice, 20th in the series, was released this fall by Minotaur Books.

Patricia Moyes
Dead Men Don’t Ski (1958) introduces Henry Tibbett, a Scotland Yard Inspector. When Henry and his wife Emmy decided to take a skiing vacation, his superiors decide this is a perfect opportunity to investigate drug smuggling connected to Santa Chiara, a small village in the Italian Alps. On the train Emmy and Henry meet two groups also traveling to the Bella Vista ski hotel: Colonel Buckfast and his annoying wife, and rich young Jimmy Passendell and his friends Caro and Roger. Henry and Emmy throw themselves wholeheartedly into skiing lessons and getting to know their fellow guests until one is shot on the ski lift connecting the hotel to the village below. The local investigators unmask Henry as a fellow policeman and ask his help in translating the interviews with the English guests. Henry in turn brings Emmy in to take notes. Henry’s affable gentlemanly exterior hides a sharp mind and a nose for crime, supported by Emmy’s cheerful capability and excellent listening skills. This series opener is a thoroughly enjoyable example of the classic British detective novel enlivened with a beautifully rendered setting.

Katherine Neville
The Eight (1988) is a complex thriller featuring ciphers, conspiracies, puzzles and a hunt for the Montglane Service, a chess set that has the power to change history. The book is set in two periods: 1972 with the story of Catherine Velis, a computer expert sent to Algeria to work with OPEC, and 1790 when the Abbess of Montglane digs up the legendary chess set once owned by Charlemagne, which has been hidden for 1000 years. Threatened by the French Revolution, the Abbess sends her nuns off with pieces of the chess set and flees to Russia to take shelter with her friend Empress Catherine. Mireille, a nun sent to Paris, finds herself in the midst of the Terror before Napoleon and his sister help her escape to Corsica. In 1972, Catherine is helped by her friend Lily, a chess master, and Lily’s fierce but tiny dog, as they join the “Game” and search for chess pieces while trying to solve the puzzle of the power of the chess set. Historical characters mix seamlessly with fictional ones, as this 600+ page book speeds non-stop through adventure, betrayal, espionage, and self-sacrificing loyalty in France, Algeria, Russia, and America. An astounding debut novel, this suspenseful and well-plotted novel is a compelling historical fantasy.

Peter Temple
The Broken Shore (2005) finds Joe Cashin, a homicide cop recovering from a life-threatening injury, working in the quiet South Australian coastal town where he grew up. Charles Bourgoyne, an elderly local millionaire is attacked and left for dead, and three aboriginal teens are identified trying to sell his watch. When two of the teens are killed by police during the arrest, the department closes the case. Cashin isn’t convinced the boys are guilty, and continues with an unauthorized investigation. Trying to stay under the radar of the racist police, Cashin pursues a thread that leads to evidence of child pornography and sexual abuse. This outstanding novel features a vivid sense of place and a flawed but sympathetic protagonist who can’t help fighting the system in defense of the oppressed.

Minette Walters
The Ice House (1992) is the story of Phoebe Maybury, living with two friends in Streech Grange, her country manor. One hot afternoon, Phoebe’s gardener discovers a decomposing corpse in the overgrown ice house. Chief Inspector Walsh is convinced that the body must be Phoebe’s husband, who vanished without a trace 10 years ago. The disappearance of David Maybury was Walsh’s first big case, and it has haunted him since the lack of a body left him unable to prove his conviction that Phoebe was guilty of his murder. Sergeant Alan McLoughton, Walsh’s second in command, is immediately infected with the village dislike for the three women, who are viewed as lesbians, witches, and possible child abusers. As the investigation proceeds, McLoughton is less convinced that the body is David Maybury, but suspicious because the women refuse to answer questions openly. The slow unfolding of the various personalities and motivations is spellbinding in this beautifully written debut novel, winner of the 1992 New Blood Dagger Award.

Elizabeth Zelvin
Death Will Get You Sober (Minotaur 2008) introduces alcoholic Bruce Kohler, who wakes up in detox a few days before Christmas in the Bowery in Manhattan. He forms a shaky friendship with a fellow inmate named Godfrey Brandon Kettleworth III, who calls himself God. When Godfrey dies suddenly, Bruce isn’t convinced it is a natural death. Bruce’s friends Jimmy and Barbara, hoping that mental stimulation will encourage Bruce to stay sober, encourage his compulsion to investigate Godfrey’s death. Alternating first person narration from Bruce and third person following the other characters provide a look at the struggle of a recovery alcoholic from different perspectives. Though the plot is slight, the characters are interesting, and the AA theme is handled lightly and with humor in this debut mystery.

Selçuk Altun
Many and Many a Year Ago (2008) [Telegram Books 2009; trans. from Turkish by Ruth Christi & Selcuk Berilgen] is more of a mysterious literary quest for answers, than a mystery, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Kemal Kuray has vaulted to high rank in the Turkish Air Force, but his life changes dramatically when he crashes his F-16 in a test flight. Things take a strange turn when we receives a $5,000 monthly allowance from a friend who has disappeared. His friend was obsessed by Edgar Allen Poe, and Kemal is launched on an international search, following ephemeral clues, that eventually takes him to the Poe Museum in Baltimore. The book’s title is taken from Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee”, and the Poe element provides some sidelight interest as we wind down the bi-centennial of Poe’s birth. This is an intriguing, well-written, if off-beat book, full of literary references, but not overwhelmingly so. It is also refreshing to read of modern day Istanbul from the perspective of a native Turk.

Donna Andrews
Swan for the Money (Minotaur 2009) is the 9th in the Meg Langslow series. Meg’s parents have become fanatic rose growers and have coerced Meg into organizing the Caerphilly Garden Club’s First Annual Rose Show, hosted by Philomena Winkleson at her ritzy estate farm. Everything on the Winkleston estate is monochromatic including the livestock: black and white Belted Galloway cows, black Frisian horses (kept inside during daylight to prevent reddening), fierce black swans, and a hilarious herd of Tennessee belted fainting goats that do exactly that when surprised or excited. Mrs. Winkleson is sponsoring a special prize for the blackest rose, and Meg’s father has thrown himself wholeheartedly into rose hybridization while her mother grooms the entries with tiny tools. When a friend of Mrs. Winkleson is found dead near the security fence surrounding the Winkleson rose garden, everyone asumes it is the eccentric and nasty hostess herself because of the monochromatic outfit, and Meg finds herself in the middle of another murder investigation. The mystery is not as interesting as Meg’s family and friends, but the quirky humor is more than enough to carry this amusing book.

Brian Freemantle
Charlie M (1977, APA: Charlie Muffin) introduces Charlie Muffin, an experienced, rumpled, and endearing working-class British agent. Charlie irritates his boss and fellow agents with his appearance and accent, yet he always manages to get results. After narrowly escaping death during a border crossing in Berlin, Charlie is convinced that the department has decided he is expendable. Back in London, Charlie finds that two younger agents are now sharing his office while Charlie’s desk has been moved to what used to be the secretary’s rest room. But the in-experienced upper-class agents who are given preference begin bungling the defection of the head of the KGB, and Charlie finds himself back in action. This amusing spy story is fast-paced, satisfying, and almost makes us nostalgic for the Cold War.

John Galligan
The Nail Knot (2003) introduces Ned “Dog” Oglivie, who is traveling the United States in an old RV, trout fishing until his money runs out. He is content to live simply upon peanut butter sandwiches and vodka-Tang and would prefer not to interact with anything except the trout. Unfortunately he stumbles across the body of a fellow fly fisher and is trapped in Black Earth, Wisconsin, until the murderer is caught. While working to solve the mystery, Dog is surprised to find himself beginning to care about another human being. Humorous and original, this mystery will appeal to fishers and non-fishers alike.

Emyl Jenkins
Stealing with Style (2005), introduces Sterling Glass, an antiques expert in the small town of Leemont, Virginia. Divorced with grown children, Sterling wishes her friendship with Peter Donaldson, a former minister now working at the local Salvation Army Thrift Shop, would develop into something more. Sterling is asked by Roy Madison, the trust officer in charge of the estate of an elderly woman found dead in her apartment, to make a quick appraisal of the contents of the apartment before the police change the locks. Sterling finds a rare silver tea urn hidden in a closet, and is astounded when she investigates and discovers is is worth at least $70,000. Then Peter finds a valuable bracelet hidden in a potholder donated to the Salvation Army by the dead woman’s relatives, and Sterling finds herself caught up in the investigation of an antiques burglary ring preying on the elderly. Sterling writes an Antiques Q&A column for the local paper, and each chapter begins with a question and answer that highlights a bit of antique trivia that will be important in the narration, a clever way to insert needed information without interrupting the action. Jenkins herself is an experienced antiques appraiser, and her love for her subject comes through clearly in Sterling’s passion for treasures from the past. An intriguing heroine and clever mystery make this debut something special.

Laurie R. King
Touchstone (2007) takes place in 1926 in England. The coal miners are on the verge of a massive strike when Harris Stuyvesant, an investigator for the U.S. Justice department, arrives looking for the man responsible for a series of terrorist bombings in America. His prime suspect is Richard Bunsen, a leader in the Labour Party. He gets little support from British officials until he meets Aldous Carstairs who is eager to introduce Harris to Bennett Grey, whose sister works for Lady Laura Hurleigh, Bunsen’s lover and supporter. Grey, the Touchstone, was nearly killed in WWI and now lives in isolation since his heightened senses cause him physical pain when near someone who lies or plans evil deeds. Harris convinces Grey to come back to society long enough to introduce him to Bunsen, but soon realizes that Carstairs has his own plans for Grey. The personal and political agendas are slowly intertwined as Harris struggles to unmask his terrorist without injuring any of the people he comes to cherish. Full of period details and unforgettable characters, this assured novel was nominated for the Bruce Alexander Best Historical Mystery Award.

Mary Saums
Thistle and Twigg (2007) introduces Jane Thistle, who has just moved to Alabama after the death of her career military husband. Originally from England, Jane feels that she is finally at home again in the small town of Tullulah, especially after meeting Phoebe Twigg, another 60ish widow who has lived her whole life in Tullulah. After an initial encounter involving a shotgun and threats, Jane befriends Cal Prewitt, a reclusive man who owns the neighboring woods. When Jane and Phoebe stumble over a body on Cal’s land, things get even more interesting: Cal is wanted for murder and Phoebe’s kitchen is firebombed. Narrated in alternating chapters by the two very different women, the opposing views of the same events are often hilarious. Outwardly a proper silver-haired lady who retains her British accent, Jane has hidden depths. She owns an arsenal collected by her husband, practices martial arts, and can see ghosts. Phoebe is totally transparent. She is related to or knows everyone in town, and speaks her mind openly, even when she hasn’t a clue what is going on. Humor, suspense, and a surprising supernatural element, combine to make his unusual cozy a success on many different levels.

Kitty Sewell
Ice Trap (2005) is the story of Dafydd Woodruff, a surgeon in Cardiff, Wales, who receives a letter from a 13 year old girl in Moose Creek, Northwest Territories, Canada, claiming to be his daughter. The letter couldn’t have come at a worse time, since Dafydd and his wife Isabel have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive, and he is beginning to wonder if he really wants to become a father. Dafydd knew the girl’s mother, Sheila Hailey, while working in the Moose Creek Clinic 15 years earlier, but since they never had sex he knows the girl can’t be his daughter. When the DNA tests come back positive, Dafydd’s marriage begins to crumble and he returns to Moose Creek to ferret out the truth. Flashbacks from Dafydd’s year in the remote sub-Arctic wilderness are interspersed with the current narration, slowly revealing the events of the past that are driving the present. A unique and beautifully portrayed setting and complex characters more than make up for occasional lapses in narrative drive. This compelling debut novel of psychological suspense was a finalist for the 2006 New Blood Dagger Award.

Paul Tremblay
The Little Sleep (Henry Holt 2009) introduces Mark Genevich, a severely narcoleptic private investigator in South Boston, Massachusetts. Not only does he fall asleep in mid-conversation, but he also has serious hallucination problems, making it difficult to run a detective business properly. Jennifer Times hires him to find her stolen fingers — or did she? Mark isn’t too sure, and Jennifer denies it. He finds compromising pictures of her in an envelope on his desk, so it must be true, but her father, the Suffolk County District Attorney, denies that the pictures are Jennifer. With Mark as the protagonist, the story can go about anywhere. He wants to be a tough, wise-cracking PI, but with his tenuous grip on reality, it is a hard act. Mark also finds he has to depend on his mother Ellen, if for no other reason than she owns his apartment and his office. Readers prone to nervous anxiety probably shouldn’t read this one — Mark insists on smoking (being a hard-boiled kind of guy), but tends to fall asleep with burning cigarets, and of course, he shouldn’t drive! But you have to give him credit for trying, and he is somehow endearing. A second book in the series is due in February.

R.D. Wingfield
Frost at Christmas (1984) introduces Jack Frost, a scruffy and forgetful detective inspector in Denton, England. It’s the week before Christmas, and Tracey Uphill, the eight-year-old daughter of a successful call girl, disappears on the way home from Sunday School. Clive Barnard, a detective constable straight from London attired in a flashy Carnaby suit, is assigned to work with Frost. Barnard, the nephew of the Chief Constable, agrees with the Superintendent in thinking Frost a crude and bumbling fool, but the rest of the police force enjoys Frost’s idiosyncrasies and respects his ability as a detective. As the days pass and no sign is found of Tracey, Frost and Barnard get caught up in investigating the remains of a skeleton linked to an unsolved bank robbery. Frost is a unique and enjoyable protagonist who often blurts out thoughts that would best remain unspoken, a trait that endangers any chance of further promotion. This humorous police procedural was nominated for the 1989 New Blood Dagger Award, and we are looking forward to reading the remaining books in the series.

Ace Atkins
Devil’s Garden (Putnam 2009) tells the story of the 1921 trial of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, accused of killing Virginia Rappe, who was mysteriously injured and dies four days after a wild party hosted by Arbuckle in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. William Randolph Hearst, determined to punish Arbuckle for a brief liaison with his mistress, minor film star Marion Davies, uses his newspaper to accuse Arbuckle of crushing the innocent Virginia with his massive body during an attempted rape. Arbuckle, not nearly as large as his film studio reputation, is confused and bemused by the whole affair, unable to believe that a party crasher can ruin his career. Sam Dashiell Hammett, a Pinkerton operative living in San Francisco, is hired by Arbuckle’s lawyer to find the witnesses being hidden by the prosecution. Battling tuberculosis, Hammett finds evidence that the autopsy was a farce, and the police investigation sloppy at best. Written in pitch-perfect period tone, this fast-paced novel brings San Francisco and the Hollywood crowd of the 1920s to vivid life.

Brett Ellen Block
The Lightning Rule (2006) is set in Newark, New Jersey, in 1967. Detective Martin Emmett is banished to the records room because he refuses to release the name of a black witness to a murder committed either by a mobster or a bent cop. Emmett’s home life isn’t easy either; his brother has returned from Vietnam in a wheelchair and has retreated into bitter alcoholism. When a black teenager’s body is found dumped in a subway tunnel, Emmett is called back to investigate since his boss needs a detective to toss to the wolves when the crime isn’t solved. Emmett discovers that the body is missing a finger, and remembers a similar case buried in the unsolved section of the records room. Burrowing through older records, he discovers a third unsolved murder of another black teenager missing a finger, and knows the cases are connected. As Emmett investigates, the infamous Newark Riots break out and Emmett must negotiate his way through road blocks, corrupt cops, racist attacks, and organized crime. Along the way he rescues a young black friend of the murdered boy who provides the connection that finally leads Emmett to at least some of the truth. This powerful novel was a finalist for the 2007 Macavity Award for Best Historical Novel.

Stephen Booth
Black Dog (2000) introduces Ben Cooper, a detective constable trying to fill his dead father’s shoes, in Northern England’s Peak District. When young Laura Vernon goes missing, retired miner Harry Dickinson’s dog finds the girl’s shoe, leading the police to the body. Ben feels that the old man is holding something back, but the police focus on the gardener working for the girl’s wealthy parents. Ben, who worries that he may also be suffering from his mother’s "black dog" of schizophrenia, is partnered with Diane Fry, a coldly ambitious new transfer with secrets of her own. Both are on the short list for a promotion, but work out an uneasy truce as their investigation proceeds. They uncover unsavory aspects of the Vernon family life and try to convince Harry to reveal the information Ben is convinced he is hiding. This debut atmospheric thriller moves at a leisurely pace while always maintaining the psychological tension.

P.J. Brooke
Blood Wedding (Soho Constable 2008) introduces Sub Inspector Max Romano, a detective assigned as liaison to the Muslim community in Granada, Spain. When Leila Mahfouz, a Muslim graduate student from England, is murdered in Max’s home village of Diva in the nearby mountains, Max is asked to help with the investigation. The prime suspect is living at the European Training Center for young Muslim entrepreneurs, and representatives from the Anti-Terrorist Group in Madrid suspect there may be a terrorist connection. The investigation reveals varied expectations: the local police want a quick solution to the crime at any cost, the Anti-Terrorist investigators have political agendas connected to the upcoming election, Max wants the truth about Leila’s death, and Leila was searching for a solution to the mystery of who betrayed Federico Garcia Lorca’s hiding place to the right-wing military during the Spanish Civil War. Because of Max’s mixed Scots-Spanish heritage, he is both connected and detached from his environment, giving him the perspective to identify all the different threads and their possible connections. Though totally involved in the investigation, Max seems to have plenty of time for wine, tapas, and his family, providing a unusually leisured pacing for a murder investigation. This debut novel by the husband/wife writing team of Philip J. O’Brien and Jane Brooke is a thought-provoking introduction to a unique detective in a fascinating setting.

Michael Connelly
The Brass Verdict (Little, Brown and Company 2008) is the second book in the Mickey Haller series. Still recovering from the addiction to pain medication following his gunshot wound, Mickey is just about ready to start back slowly as a defense lawyer when he gets an urgent message to visit the chief judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Jerry Vincent, another sole practitioner, has been murdered, and Mickey has inherited his 31 cases, including that of Walter Elliot, a Hollywood producer charged with murdering his wife and her lover. The judge warns Mickey that he had better head quickly over to Vincent’s office to protect the confidential case files, but Mickey finds Detective Harry Bosch already going through them, searching for a motive for Vincent’s murder. Though initially reluctant to take on too much too soon, Mickey is soon back into full “Lincoln Lawyer” mode, reading case files non-stop in the back seat of his Lincoln set up as a mobile office. When Mickey’s life is threatened, he realizes that the Elliot case may be more than it seems, and he and Bosch establish a tentative partnership to uncover the truth. Mickey’s search for the "magic bullet" that will convince the jury to clear Elliot is masterfully portrayed—Mickey leads the reader quickly and easily through the legal issues and demonstrates the “high” that comes from solving a complex case. This feeling is balanced by Mickey’s moral sense, as the case draws him into issues of jury tampering, fraud, and legal malpractice. This highly recommended novel is engrossing from start to finish.

Melodie Johnson Howe
The Mother Shadow (1989) introduces Maggie Hill, a 35-year-old failed writer now working for a temp agency in Los Angeles, California. Ellis Kenilworth, Maggie’s wealthy current employer, asks her to witness and then keep a new codicil to his will which leaves his valuable coin collection to Claire Conrad, a stranger outside the family. While Maggie lunches, Kenilworth kills himself. Maggie finds the body and a suicide note, but by the time the police arrive the note is missing. Later Maggie discovers the codicil has been stolen from her purse. Maggie tracks down Claire Conrad, an eccentric and elegant private detective. Together, they begin to investigate the Kenilworth family, uncovering unsavory secrets while exchanging snappy quips. First in a two book series, this thoroughly enjoyable debut novel was nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, and Edgar awards.

R.N. Morris
The Gentle Axe (2007) finds us in the world of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, about 18 months after the conclusion of that book. Two bodies are discovered in Petvosky Park: a dwarf with an axe wound in his skull and a peasant with a bloody axe in his belt hanging from a tree. Porfiry Petrovich, still haunted by the case of Raskolnikov, finds himself with another starving student as his main suspect in the new case. Morris captures the murky atmosphere of 1866 St. Petersburg, Russia, with empathy and skill: starving prostitutes and students, bureaucrats looking for quick solutions, the insurmountable gap between peasants and aristocrats. Porfiry Petrovich evades attempts to take him off the case and follows a twisted path of clues and hunches to reach the surprising conclusion.

Steven Rigolosi
Androgynous Murder House Party (Ransom Note Press 2009) is narrated by Robin Anders, the wealthy and snobbish director of new talent at The Goode Foundation in New York City. One weekend, the androgynous Robin throws a house party on Long Island for six equally androgynous friends. A series of near fatal accidents threaten Robin’s life, but a combination of different colored pills prescribed by Robin’s psychologist, Terry, allows Robin to remain unaware of his peril. When Robin’s best friend Lee and former partner Pat are killed after returning to New York, even the self-absorbed Robin can’t ignore the fact that something is going on—someone in their circle must be a killer. Robin is a hilarious narrator, relentlessly intent on presenting a perfect exterior to the world, making catty comments about everyone encountered, and pretentious to the extreme. The androgynous joke is carried seamlessly through the book, no small feat as I can attest after trying to write this without used a gender-infused pronoun!

Diane A.S. Stuckart
The Queen’s Gambit (Berkley 2009) introduces Delfina, a young woman who in 1483 disguises herself as a boy, Dino, in order to gain an apprenticeship with the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci, currently employed as court engineer to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. During a living chess game, the Duke’s ambassador to France is murdered and Dino stumbles over the body. As an outsider free of the intrigues of court politics, Leonardo is the only man the Duke can trust to find the killer. Leonardo enlists Dino as a helper in the investigation, sure that no one will notice the young apprentice spying in the background. Dino’s narration, as she struggles to hide her gender from everyone around her, is full of interesting details of the everyday life of an art apprentice: making brushes, mixing paints, preparing frescos. Leonardo emerges as a talented Holmesian observer of detail, and his fascinating mechanical inventions add spice to this historical mystery.

Inger Ash Wolfe
Inger Ash Wolfe is the pseudonym for a North American literary novelist who has written a first rate crime novel. The Calling (Harcourt 2008) introduces Hazel Micallef, a 61-year old detective inspector in the small town of Port Dundas, Ontario, Canada. Hazel, divorced after nearly 40 years of marriage, lives with her 87-year old mother, who has Hazel on a strict and tasteless diet. Suffering from a bad back, Hazel has reduced her dependence on the alcohol that destroyed her marriage, but not the painkillers that help her through the night. When a terminally ill woman is gruesomely murdered in her own home, Hazel and her understaffed police department struggle to rise to the challenge of the first murder in years. A second murder in a nearby small town ups the ante, especially when evidence emerges that points to a serial killer with a long string of unsolved murders. The police find no sign of forced entry, the victims seem to have welcomed the murderer into their homes. The killer sees himself as a merciful agent helping his willing victims move from a painful life to the peaceful escape of death, but the mutilation of the bodies after death hints at undercurrents of rage and insanity. With little support from her superiors, Hazel orchestrates a team to find the earlier murders and hopefully predict the next target before the killer strikes again. Overcoming her distaste for technology, Harriet uses every means at her command to find the pattern motivating the killer, often violating procedure and endangering her career. This beautifully written book, which presents a unique and complex character struggling to make sense of a frustrating and dangerous reality, is highly recommended.

Ruth Brandon
Caravaggio’s Angel (Soho Constable 2008) introduces Reggie Lee, an art curator for the National Gallery in London, England. After stumbling across a rare pamphlet at a rural school fete, Reggie begins to plan a small exhibition of three almost identical Caravaggio paintings of St. Cecilia and the Angel. One painting is at the Louvre, another at the Getty, and Reggie is determined to track down the third. When a fourth painting emerges, Reggie is sure one is a fake, but which one? Reggie is an engaging protagonist who easily makes the transition from an art historian investigating the history of a painting to amateur sleuth investigating sudden deaths she is sure are not accidents. The early 17th century art history details are fascinating, sending me on an Internet search for the work of Caravaggio, as are the insights into art thefts in the early 20th century.

Lester Dent
Honey in His Mouth (written 1956, first published by Hard Case Crime in 2009) finds small-time con-man Walter Harsh caught up in an international plot involving millions of dollars. The masterminds have been waiting for a dupe with the right looks and blood type to substitute for a South American dictator—all he needs is a scar in the right place and some Spanish lessons. Walter is more interested in the day-to-day problems of finding a bit of cash and getting back together with Vera Sue. Walter thinks $25,000 would be a king’s ransom, and has a hard time playing in the same league with the cabal that has taken over his life. Flirting with the dictator’s mistress and living a life of ease has some appeal, but as the pressure mounts, the conspirators begin to fight amongst themselves, leaving Walter and Vera Sue in dire straits. We weren’t familiar with Lester Dent, although he created the pulp hero Doc Savage and wrote about 165 adventures under the house pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. The writing in this book is accomplished and a bit quirky in an appealing way, and the ending was unexpected. Dent wrote only a handful of mysteries, but we’re glad to have added an author page for him, triggered by the new Hard Case Crime entry.

Bryan Gruley
Starvation Lake (Touchstone 2009) introduces reporter Gus Carpenter who has returned to his hometown of Starvation Lake, Michigan, after leaving the Detroit Times in disgrace. On top of that failure, everyone in town remembers that he was the goalie who gave up the winning goal to lose the town’s only chance at the state hockey championship ten years earlier. After that season, beloved hockey coach Jack Blackburn died in a snowmobile accident and the town’s economic health took a turn for the worse. Now working as editor for the Pilot, whose motto is “Michigan’s Finest Bluegill Wrapper,” Gus plays hockey with his boyhood teammates, rehashing aggressions and alliances on the ice. When the remains of a snowmobile emerge from a different lake with a bullet hole in the hood, the police and the press wonder if Blackburn was murdered. Most of the town, including the owner of the paper, would prefer that the past stay buried, but Gus and cub reporter Joanie McCarthy sink their teeth into the investigation and can’t let go. Gruley’s depiction of small town life is pitch perfect: the long group memory, the importance of hockey in a small northern town, and the difficulty of becoming an adult in a town who knew you as a kid.

Tracy Kiely
Murder at Longbourn (Minotaur 2009) introduces Elizabeth Parker, a newspaper fact-checker and die-hard Jane Austen fan in Virginia. Elizabeth has just broken up with her two-timing boyfriend and is facing a lonely New Year’s Eve when a note arrives from her Aunt Winnie, inviting her to a Murder Party at her new Bed & Breakfast on Cape Cod, which Winnie, who is also an obsessed fan of Pride and Prejudice, has christened The Inn at Longbourn. Elizabeth is horrified to find that Peter McGowan, her childhood nemesis, is helping Aunt Winnie with the opening festivities, but the handsome and very British Daniel Simms provides a welcome distraction. The Murder Party proceeds as expected until the all too realistic scream when the lights suddenly go out. The very dead body of the very wealthy and obnoxious Gerald Ramsey is revealed when the lights go on again. Since Ramsey had competed with Aunt Winnie for the B&B property, and vowed that the house would one day be his, Winnie is the prime suspect for his murder. Determined to clear her aunt’s name, Elizabeth sets out to find the real murderer. Red herrings and Austen quotes abound in this light and witty debut mystery.

Serena Mackesy
Hold My Hand (Soho Constable 2008) is the story of Rospetroc House, a Cornish manor house turned tourist rental. Parallel stories tell of two migrations from London. During WWII, Lily, a nine-year old East Ender was evacuated to stay with the unwelcoming and dysfunctional Blakemore family at Rospetroc House. In the present, Bridget Sweeny flees London with her six-year-old daughter Yasmin to escape her abusive ex-husband Kieran, and becomes housekeeper for Rospetroc House, now a tourist rental. With few guests and an unreliable electric system, Bridget is often nervous in the remote house, though relieved that Yasmin seems to be settling into the village school and has made a new friend called Lily. Vandalism inside the house and a feeling of being watched intensify for Bridget as Kieran begins to pick up their trail from London. This suspenseful and scary modern gothic novel is a chilling tale of murder and revenge that builds to a frightening conclusion during a snowstorm and power outage.

Barry Maitland
The Marx Sisters (1994) introduces Kathy Kolla, a young Scotland Yard detective, and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock, in London, England, who are called to investigate the death of an elderly widow, living with her two sisters in Jerusalem Lane, a unique neighborhood where Eastern European immigrants pass the time debating philosophical points and harboring ancient grudges. The coroner rules suicide, but the case is reopened when the second sister is murdered six months later. The sisters are Karl Marx’s great-granddaughters (via an illegitimate son), which adds an interesting twist to this fine mystery. (All My Enemies, the 3rd in the series, was recently reissued by Minotaur.)

Jennifer McMahon
Promise Not To Tell (2007) is the story of Kate Cypher, a nurse who returns home to a small town in Vermont to care for her mother who has Alzheimer’s. The night of Kate’s return, a young girl is killed in the same way Kate’s childhood friend Del was brutally murdered 30 years earlier. Kate and her mother Jean arrived to live in a tent in a commune next to Del’s farm when Kate was 10. With her hippie lifestyle, Kate doesn’t fit in at her new school, but Del is even more of an outcast. Known as the Potato Girl, Del is bullied and tormented by her classmates, and is afraid of her father. But Kate is attracted to the free-spirited girl, and they become secret friends since Kate doesn’t have the courage to stand up to the 5th grade status quo. The current murder drives Kate back into memories of the past as she tries to come to terms with her own betrayal of Del while coping with the fear that her mother may have something to do with the new killing. Moving effortlessly between past and present, this chilling debut novel incorporates supernatural elements without sacrificing realistic suspense as Kate tries to figure out the truth. The portrait of Del, an imaginative child caught between the isolating control of her father and the continual cruelty of her classmates, is unforgettable.

J. Michael Orenduff
The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras (Oak Tree Press 2009) introduces Hubert Schuze, owner of a shop selling Native American pottery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hubert is a treasure hunter, proud of his ability to find old pots on public land. Unfortunately that occupation was made illegal when Congress passed the Archaeological Resources Protection Act in 1980. But Hubert still believes the pots belong to the finder. He is surprised when a furtive customer offers him $25,000 to steal an ancient Mogollon water jug from the Valle del Rio Museum at the University of New Mexico. Tempted by the challenge, Hubert scopes out the museum just to see if the theft would be possible. Then he receives a surprise visit from a Bureau of Land Management agent who suspects that Hubert may be involved with the recent theft of a similar pot from park headquarters at Bandelier National Monument. When the agent is murdered, Hubert knows he is in over his head. but with the help of his best friend Susannah (a fan of Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr) and his nephew Tristan (a master of all things electronic), he sets out to find the truth. Hubert is an engaging protagonist: totally enamored of his native town, he lives on huevos rancheros and margaritas and is studying Pythagoras in order to figure out how the ancient potters could manage to space 17 design elements evenly around a pot. Hubert and his quirky friends occupy center stage more often than the murder investigation, but that doesn’t detract at all from the charm of the book, which is sure to appeal to fans of humorous mysteries.

P.J. Parrish
Dark of the Moon (2000) introduces Louis Kincaid, a young Detroit cop who returns in 1983 to his birthplace in rural Mississippi to be with his dying mother, an alcoholic who surrendered him to foster care with a white family when he was seven. Hired by mail and phone before sheriff Sam Dodie realizes he is half black, Louis encounters ingrained prejudice in Black Pool, where segregation is considered the norm. The discovery of the skeleton of a young black man lynched at least 20 years ago confronts Louis with the grim reality of his home town only a generation before. Though Louis is determined to identify the body, the town’s white power structure wants him to sweep the whole incident quickly under the rug. When white men begin dying, Louis suspects that the new murders are an attempt to cover up the old crime. Though reminiscent of John Ball’s Virgil Tibbs, Louis Kincaid is a strong character: conflicted about his mixed race, unable to forgive his dying mother for deserting him, and haunted by a powerful sense of responsibility toward the dead. This gripping debut novel is a fast-paced thriller set against a disturbing portrayal of a southern town struggling to come to terms with civil rights.

Marcus Sakey
The Amateurs (Dutton 2009) is Sakey’s fourth non-series thriller, this time following the spiraling fates of four 30-something friends who have gravitated together seemingly through a shared sense of failure: Jenn, a travel agent who can only dream of taking a vacation like the ones she arranges; Mitch, a hotel doorman, with major insecurity issues; Ian, a cokehead financial trader waiting to repeat his big score, who also has a gambling problem; and Alex, a divorced bartender with child support and custody problems, who once wanted to be a lawyer. Meeting as the Thursday Night Drinking Club where Alex tends bar, one night the sleazy owner, Johnny Love, puts the moves on Jenn, insults Mitch, and threatens Alex, who learns that Johnny has a large pile of money as middleman in some nefarious deal. The group finds a common purpose fantasizing about robbing Johnny’s safe. After all, they are smart and above suspicion. The plan takes on a life of its own, and the amateur crooks predictably find themselves involved in murder, pursued by scary professional killers, and with a lot more than money to worry about. The protagonists will resonate with some readers more than others, but the writing is compelling as the four losers struggle to cope with their unraveling lives and plans, with some ennobling theatrics to round out the plot.

Jeff Abbott
Trust Me (Dutton 2009) is a stand-alone thriller, which finds Luke Dantry, a University of Texas graduate student, applying his computer skills to infiltrate extremist websites and befriend terrorists on the Internet, working for his stepfather’s think tank. Luke focuses on a group of malcontents, bombers, and assassins called the “Night Road.” as they work toward their ultimate goal “Hellfire.” Luke thinks he is working for the good guys, but things are more complicated than that; other shadowy groups such as the Book Club (!) and Quicksilver make it difficult to trust anyone. The days and nights of researching and chatting in the Internet are soon over for Luke, as he is kidnaped and becomes a highly sought international fugitive, trying to stay one step ahead of multiple pursuers. Soon enough, Luke can’t even trust his own past. This is a fast-paced adventure that rushes from Texas to Chicago, New York, Paris, with seemingly superhuman villains: Snow, the white-haired female bomber who grew up in a Waco Branch Davidian-style community, and Mouser, the indestructible ex-con. They’ve got the organization, the will, and the motivating hatreds — all they need is more money and time. Trust Me is all the more alarming because it resonates with current events.

Susanne Alleyn
The Cavalier of the Apocalypse (Minotaur Books 2009) is a prequel explaining how series hero Aristide Ravel, a young and impoverished writer in Paris, France, becomes a detective. In 1786, Ravel runs into an old schoolmate, the wealthy Olivier Derville, who introduces Ravel to a printer who is interested in manuscripts mocking the royal family and the Church, and Ravel promises three essays on the state of France and what might be done about it. Brasseur, a friendly police inspector, saves him from losing the down payment to a cut-purse on the way home. When Brasseur finds a murdered man marked with strange symbols in a churchyard, he asks Ravel for help interpreting the symbols. Impressed by Ravel’s natural bent for investigation, he appoints him an unofficial sub-inspector to help identify the murderer. Their investigation leads to a confusing tangle of secret societies, the royal scandal of the queen’s diamond necklace, and rumblings of revolution against the court of Louis XVI. Ravel is never sure exactly who he can trust as he follows the thread of evidence through the streets and mansions of Paris, meeting strange historical figures like Honoré Fragonard, an anatomist who created macabre models like The Cavalier of the Apocalypse: a preserved skinless man riding a skinless horse. Excellent details make this fascinating historical period come to life.

Jefferson Bass
Carved in Bone (William Morrow 2006) introduces Dr. Bill Brockton, a forensic anthropologist who runs the Anthropology Research Facility (dubbed The Body Farm) at the University of Tennessee. Brockton is asked by the sheriff of nearby Cooke County to help with a a nearly mummified corpse discovered in a cave. When Brockman examines the body, the discovery of the skeleton of a 4-month old fetus inflames his pain over the death of his wife and his estrangement from his grown son. The discovery of a set of dog tags around the dead woman’s neck eventually leads to a match with a young woman who disappeared 30 years earlier, though getting any information from the clannish and suspicious residents of Cooke County is not an easy task for an outsider. Brockton’s investigation is not helped by the overly powerful sheriff and his incompetent deputy, but his criminologist friend at the Knoxville Police Department is willing to help out. Brockman’s discussions with his student assistants and snippets from class lectures provide a natural forum for inserting tidbits of forensic science into the narrative. Jefferson Bass is the joint alias for Dr. Bill Bass, who founded the real Body Farm, and Jon Jefferson, which explains the enthusiastic, but not overly gruesome, presentation of the details of forensic examination techniques.

Lawrence Block
Burglars Can’t Be Choosers (1977) introduces Bernie Rhodenbarr, a burglar in New York City. While on the job in a fancy apartment, Bernie is surprised by two policemen responding to a call. Recognizing one, Bernie offers a bribe, which is accepted, and all is well until the other cop finds a dead body in the bedroom. Bernie makes a quick escape and hides out in the apartment of an actor acquaintance who is on tour. With the assistance of the girl who appears to water his friend’s plants, Bernie is soon on the hunt for the real murderer. Bernie is a charming protagonist, quick-witted and proud of his burglary skills. This lighthearted caper is a fast-moving puzzle with enough surprises to keep you guessing until the end.

Alan Bradley
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Delacorte Press 2009) introduces Flavia de Luce, an 11-year old aspiring chemist in the small village of Bishop’s Lacey, England, in 1950. Flavia’s father is still mourning the death of his wife, who died 10 years earlier, and her two older sisters are absorbed in either books or the mirror, so Flavia is usually left to her own devices. Early one morning Flavia discovers a stranger in the cucumber patch, who breathes his last word into her face and dies. Since this is easily the most interesting thing that has ever happened, Flavia decides to solve the crime herself, especially after the police show no inclination to let her hover around the crime scene. When Flavia’s father is arrested and charged with murder, her efforts redouble and she is soon on the trail of the mysterious death of a schoolmaster 30 years earlier, whose last words were the same as the man in the garden. Her quest to save her father includes a desire for an emotional connection that is sadly lacking in her life. Flavia is an engaging protagonist: precocious, stubborn, single-minded, passionate in her loyalties and plots for revenge. Exotic poisons, rare stamps, and multiple red herrings enliven this light and witty debut mystery.

Grace Brophy
The Last Enemy (Soho Crime 2007) introduces Alessandro Cenni, a maverick state police commissario, in Assisi, Umbria, Italy. On Good Friday, Rita Minelli, the visiting American niece of Count Umberto Casati, is murdered in the Casati family vault. Rita brought her mother’s body back Assisi for burial several months earlier, and then over-stayed her welcome with her snobbish aristocratic relatives, none of whom seem saddened by her death. Casati, who has retained his title despite the act abolishing all Italian titles in 1947, uses his connections to try and shield his family from investigation, but Cenni is convinced that one of the family is the killer. Cenni’s superior would prefer that Cenni arrest Sophie Orlic, a Croatian flower seller who discovered the body, but Cenni refuses to be pressured into arresting an innocent woman. Cenni, who joined the police after his fiancee was kidnapped by political terrorists, is a complex and engaging protagonist. The supporting characters, Cenni’s family and colleagues as well as the suspects, are quirky and fully-developed. This debut police procedural deftly places the intrigue of contemporary Italian politics and society in context with the historical Umbrian setting.

Deborah Crombie
A Share in Death (1993) introduces Duncan Kincaid, a Scotland Yard superintendent spending a week’s vacation in a luxurious Yorkshire time-share. Kincaid hopes to hide his profession for a week, but the electrocution of a gossipy staff member in the whirlpool blows his cover. Nash, the local DCI, isn’t at all thrilled to have Kincaid on his patch, but Kincaid isn’t convinced Nash is up to the job and finagles his way into acting as a consultant. While Kincaid looks into the other guests first-hand, he sends his partner, Sergeant Gemma James, to check into their backgrounds at home. The other time-share guests all have unique personalities, with enough flaws and secrets to keep the reader guessing until the murderer is finally unmasked. Nominated for both the Agatha and Macavity awards for Best First Novel, this assured novel is a fine series start.

Dean Koontz
Odd Thomas (2003) introduces a 20-year-old fry cook in the fictional small town of Pico Mundo, California. Odd’s parents say his name is a misspelling on the birth certificate, but don’t agree on anything else. At a young age, Odd discovered that he can communicate with the lingering dead who have unfinished business. He can also see “bodachs,” dark shapes that cluster around evil or violence. Odd notices a crowd of bodachs clustering around a stranger, and later discovers a shrine to serial killers in the stranger’s house. Luckily the police chief understands Odd’s gift and works with him to figure out what is happening until the chief himself is shot. Odd’s simple and straightforward narration makes the bizarre realities of his life easy to accept. A unique and unassuming protagonist, Odd Thomas is a character you will enjoy spending time with.

Attica Locke
Black Water Rising (Harper 2009) tells the story of Jay Porter, a young, black lawyer struggling to make ends meet in 1981 Houston, Texas. To celebrate his pregnant wife’s birthday, Jay hires a cut-rate boat for a moonlight cruise. When they hear a woman screaming, then shots, and finally splashing, Jay doesn’t want to get involved, but his wife Bernie shames him into rescuing the woman from the bayou. A former activist in the Black Power movement who narrowly escaped jail time, Jay is leery of the white woman who refuses to talk to them. After dropping her off outside the police station, Jay and Bernie assume their involvement is done. But Jay can’t leave it alone, especially after a man is found shot and the woman is arrested for the murder. Jay knows the man was threatening the woman, and tries to convince her to tell the truth, revealing that he was a witness. Soon Jay is bribed with $25,000 to keep his mouth shut by a very scary guy who follows him to make sure that he does. Meanwhile, Jay is defending a young black man who was beaten after a meeting of the longshoremen who are threatening to strike, and some powerful Texan oil men and the mayor would like Jay to disappear. This literary thriller skillfully weaves powerful themes of race relations and the business practices of oil corporations with an engaging murder investigation.

Louise Penny
A Rule Against Murder (Minotaur 2009, APA: The Murder Stone 2008) finds Armand Gamache, Chief Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec, celebrating his 35th wedding anniversary at the Manoir Bellechasse, a luxurious and isolated inn not far from the village of Three Pines, in southern Quebec, Canada. Armand and Reine-Maire share the inn with the wealthy and dysfunctional Finney family, who think the Gamaches run a shop. The Gamaches are delighted when the final members of the Finney reunion, the dreaded Spot and Claire, turn out to be their old friends Peter and Clara Morrow from Three Pines. When the oldest Finney daughter is crushed by the newly installed statue of the Finney patriarch, Armand knows the murderer must either be a member of the Finney family or part of the hotel staff, but he can’t figure out how the massive statue was toppled from its base. The snobbish Finneys continually denigrate Armand’s investigation and his infamous father, but Armand treats everyone with respect as he sorts through the suspects and clues. Penny’s beautiful prose brings the eccentric characters and the beautiful Manoir Bellechasse to vivid life. The 4th book in the series, this atmospheric novel is a finalist for the 2009 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. The Brutal Telling, the 5th in the series, is due this month.

Arnaldur Indriðason
The Draining Lake (Icelandic 2004, English 2007) is the 4th Erlendur Sveinsson mystery available in English translation. An earthquake has caused the slow draining of a lake revealing a skeleton with a hole in the skull, tied to a Russian radio device. Erlendur, who is enduring his enforced summer vacation by skulking in his apartment with the shades down, is rescued by his obsession with missing persons cases and assigned to investigate. The listening device is dated to the Cold War era, when promising left-wing Icelandic students were given Soviet scholarships to the University of Leipzig in East Germany. Tantalizing snippets narrated by one of these students reveal a fascinating slice of Icelandic history as Marxist idealism clashes with Fascist reality. While checking on people who went missing around 1970, Erlendur and his colleagues, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg, focus on a salesman who disappeared, leaving a girlfriend and a new Ford Falcon behind. As the investigation slowly progresses, Erlendur struggles to maintain a relationship with his estranged children, dying former boss, and new love interest. Though Erlendur is a rather dour and gloomy protagonist, Arnaldur’s novels manage to maintain a glimmer of hope and optimism through the noir Scandinavian fatalism. This highly recommended book is nominated for both the Barry and Macavity Awards for Best Novel.

Michael Connelly
The Black Echo (1992) introduces Harry Bosch, a famous homicide detective from Los Angeles, California, who has been exiled to the small-town Hollywood police force after killing an unarmed suspect. When Harry gets the call for a body in a drainpipe, he recognizes first the tattoo, and then the face of a former fellow "tunnel rat" from Vietnam. Though meant to look like an overdose death, Harry suspects murder and is soon deep into an unpopular investigation of bank robbery, diamonds, and more murders. Harry is an amazingly complex character who elevates this solid police procedural into a vividly realistic mystery. This winner of the 1993 Edgar Award for Best First Novel is highly recommended.

Evelyn David
Murder Takes the Cake (2009) reunites Mac Sullivan, a retired cop trying to start a PI business, with Rachel Brenner, a 40-something divorcee and funeral make-up artist, in Washington, DC. When Rachel discovers that the inventory of coffins at the funeral home doesn’t match the invoices, she asks Mac to look into the discrepancy quietly since her boss is stressed out about his daughter’s upcoming wedding to the son of a snooty New England socialite family. Mac fears that the request is just a ploy on Rachel’s part to pin down his intentions about their sort-of relationship, but he needs a case to keep JJ, his young punk assistant, and Edger, his walker-bound researcher, from driving him crazy. Then the bride ambushes Mac, swears someone is trying to kill her, and hires him to catch her would-be killer. Everyone assumes this is just another case of pre-wedding jitters, but Mac worries that she might really be in danger. Whiskey, Mac’s junk-food addicted Irish wolfhound adds yet another source of fun in this light-hearted and fast-paced cozy.

Timothy Hallinan
A Nail Through the Heart (2007) introduces Poke Rafferty, who came to Bangkok to research the latest in his “Looking for Trouble” travel guides for the young adventurer. Poke has finished the book, but has found a home in Thailand with Rose, an ex-bar girl, and Miaow, an 8-year-old girl he has rescued from the streets. Miaow in turn rescues a troubled boy known as Superman, who helped her survive before vanishing into drug addiction. Rafferty has a reputation of being able to find those who vanish, and an Australian woman hires him to find her uncle who has gone missing. Rafferty discovers the missing man’s unsavory collection of sadistic pornography and soon learns more than he can stand about the brutal reality of Thailand’s street children. Despite the disturbing descriptions of sexual depravity, this powerful novel suggests that love can be a redemptive force. Rafferty is an appealing protagonist as he struggles to understand his adoptive country and to cope with the concept that murder may at times be the logical and just solution to combat the personification of evil.

Sophie Hannah
Little Face (2006) tells the chilling story of a missing baby. When Alice Fancourt returns home after her first outing since returning from the hospital she discovers that the front door is open, and realizes the baby in the nursery is not her two-week old daughter Florence. Alice’s husband David, who was napping, insists that Alice is mistaken, but Alice calls the police and reports a missing baby. Simon Waterhouse, a detective constable, responds to the call and is sympathetic to Alice, but Charlie Zailer, his detective sergeant, is sure that Alice is suffering from postpartum depression and is delusional. Alice notices that David begins calling the baby “Little Face” instead of Florence, and her mother-in-law Vivienne also begins to doubt that the baby is her granddaughter. David becomes increasingly abusive of Alice, who seems unable to cope. When both Alice and the baby disappear, the police are forced to investigate, and Simon’s suspicion of David deepens when he discovers some discrepancies in the investigation of the murder of David’s first wife. Narrated from both the viewpoint of Alice and Simon, this dark psychological thriller is emotionally intense.

Jim Kelly
The Water Clock (2003) introduces Philip Dryden, a reporter for a weekly newspaper in the watery Fens district of Cambridgeshire, England. A former reporter for a large London newspaper, Dryden is a bit tired of his mundane story assignments until the discovery of a body in a car pulled from the frozen river. When a second body is found, Dryden suspects that the connection is a robbery from 30 years ago, and uses the facts he uncovers to trade for the police file on the accident that left his wife in a coma two years earlier. Consumed by guilt that he survived the accident intact while his wife was left in the car for several hours, Dryden is willing to submit a false story in order to learn the truth. Though the ending relies too much on the compulsion of the killer to confess, this book is a fine start to a series. Dryden refuses to drive after the accident and is ferried about by an enormous taxi driver who listens constantly to foreign language tapes. Dryden, a good-humored cynic, grazes on mini-pork pies and raw mushrooms from his pockets and discusses his day each evening with his unconscious wife. Nominated for the Dagger Award for Best First Novel, this highly recommended novel sparkles with evocative prose.

Laurie R. King
The Art of Detection (2006) finds lesbian SFPD detective Kate Martinelli and her partner Al Hawkin confronted by a body dumped in the gun embankment of Battery DuMaurier in the Presidio of San Francisco. The body is identified as Philip Gilbert, a Sherlock Holmes fanatic who collected valuable Holmes memorabilia and turned the bottom floor of his house into a replica of 221B Baker Street, complete with gas lighting and a tobacco pouch stored in a Persian slipper nailed to the wall. The members of Gilbert’s monthly Holmes-themed supper club don’t seem to know much about Gilbert outside his Holmes mania, but do reveal that he was excited about a new discovery: a possible unpublished Holmes story that could be worth millions. In the story, the unidentified narrator chronicles his search for the missing lover of a transvestite nightclub singer. As Kate reads the story, the astute reader will discover that it is Holmes own account of how he spent his time while Mary Russell dealt with family obligations in Locked Rooms, great fun for fans of both series. The juxtaposition of the present day police procedural with the period Holmesian narrative adds depth to both investigations, highlighting the similarities and differences and underscoring the essential qualities of a good detective in any era.

Reggie Nadelson
Red Mercury Blues (1995, APA: Red Hot Blues 1998) introduces Artie Cohen, a New York cop who isn’t eager to remember that he was once Artemy Maximovich Otalsky of Moscow. When Gennadi Ustinov, an old friend of his father and a former KGB general tries to make contact on a visit to New York, Artie ignores him until it is too late: Ustinov is shot on a live New York talk show and dies before Artie can talk to him. The reluctant Artie, fluent in Russian, is assigned to investigate the killing since the police figure that the answer lies somewhere with the Russian Jewish mafia of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach. Unfortunately no one will talk to a cop, so Artie takes a leave and puts the word out that he is available for hire. Artie identifies Ustinov’s killer as a young Russian working as an atomic mule, selling stolen nuclear samples to the highest bidder, and dying of radiation poisoning. Though he swears he will never return to Moscow, Artie is compelled by his search for the truth to confront both his own past and Russia’s uneasy present. This New York/Russian noir debut thriller places a troubled protagonist in a situation where he must make hard choices in order to do the right thing.

Howard Shrier
Buffalo Jump (2008) introduces Jonah Geller, a private investigator in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Jonah is having a bad day. He is still recovering from a bullet wound in his arm caused by a careless mistake on a case, his boss is still mad at him, and he comes home to find a contract killer in his apartment. Luckily the hit man, Dante Ryan, isn’t there to kill Jonah, but to ask for his help. Ryan has been given the contract to kill an entire family, including a 5-year-old boy the same age as Ryan’s son, and he can’t do it. Ryan asks Jonah to find out who ordered the hit so that he can renegotiate and spare the boy’s life. Jonah investigates the father, an independent pharmacist, and soon finds himself in the midst of a dangerous prescription drug smuggling operation. Jonah is an entertaining narrator: quick, witty, always ready to defuse the situation with a joke. The supporting characters are equally complex and surprising, especially Dante Ryan, who grows on Jonah as the investigation progresses. This debut novel won the 2009 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel.

Shirley Wells
Into the Shadows (2007) introduces Jill Kennedy, a forensic psychologist who has left her job and London to write a book in the village of Kelton Bridge, Lancashire, England. Jill’s profile helped the police arrest Rodney Hill for a series of murders, but the murders continued after his suicide in jail. Jill is determined to have nothing more to do with the case, but Max Trentham, a detective chief inspector and her ex-lover, is sent to Kelton when the local vicar’s wife is murdered. Max tells Jill the police need her, and Jill begins to suspect that the serial killer, called Valentine from his habit of carving hearts into the skin of his victims, is stalking her. Once she rejoins the police, Jill suspects that Valentine may live somewhere in the rural community she now lives in. Though Jill ignores some obvious clues to the identity of the killer, the closed set of suspects allows the suspense to build.

Stephen L. Carter
The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002) is the story of Talcott (Misha) Garland, an African American law professor at an Ivy League college, who is left a cryptic note from his father, Oliver Garland, upon his death, which just might have been a murder. The family has never quite recovered from the scandal that destroyed Judge Garland’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, and now Misha’s wife Kimmer, who he suspects is unfaithful, is undergoing her own investigation for a judgeship. Judge Garland’s old friend Jack Ziegler, a former CIA agent suspected of being an organized crime boss, is interested in the mysterious “arrangements” the Judge left for Misha, as is the FBI, and several shady men who begin to follow him. Unfortunately Misha has no idea what these arrangements are. Misha’s nickname comes from his early talent for chess, and chess references begin each section. This huge (654 pages) and complex book is far more than a murder mystery, raising issues of racism, classism, politics, and the essential loneliness of the individual. Highly recommended.

Jane K. Cleland
Deadly Appraisal (2007), the 2nd in the series, finds Josie Prescott, an antiques dealer in a small town in coastal New Hampshire, feeling good about the growth of her new business. Then a woman is poisoned at the gala Prescott Antiques is sponsoring to raise money for the local Women’s Guild. Everyone who had access to the poisoned wine is under suspicion, but the police suspect that Josie may have been the intended victim. The theft of a valuable antique that was one of the fundraising auction items adds to the confusion as Josie and Wes, an untrustworthy yet talented investigative reporter, try to figure out what is really going on. Cleland is chair of the Wolfe Pack’s literary awards, and spotting references to Nero Wolfe (Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin appear on a list of car owners) adds to the fun, as does the inclusion of interesting information about antiques.

Diana Killian
High Rhymes and Misdemeanors (2003) introduces Grace Hollister, an American schoolteacher and literary scholar visiting England’s Lake District. While out walking Grace stumbles over the not-quite-dead body of Peter Fox in a stream and resuscitates him. The next day Peter disappears and Grace is kidnapped by two thugs looking for the "gewgaws" Peter is hiding. When Peter and Grace reconnect in Peter’s flat over the dead body of one of Peter’s dubious friends, Peter reveals that he has no idea what the gewgaws are but they can’t go to the police because of his criminal past. Once they discover that the missing treasures have something to do with Lord Byron, Grace is hooked, and the hunt is on. Secret passageways, unscrupulous collectors, and eccentric villagers add to the fun in this lively mystery.

Julie Kramer
Stalking Susan (2008) introduces Riley Spartz, an investigative TV reporter in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Riley has been unable to concentrate on work since her husband died a year ago, but her old friend and retiring cop Nick Garnett tempts her back into the game with his file on two women named Susan who were murdered on the same date a year apart. The police aren’t convinced there is a link between the two murders, except for Garnett, who has been staking out the area where both bodies were found each year on the anniversary date. Investigating a possible serial killer revitalizes Riley, who throws herself wholeheartedly into nailing her story and winning back her star status in the newsroom. The news director, for whom Riley is fond of imagining fatal accidents, assigns Riley a story from the tip line no one else wants—a man convinced the cremains of his dog really aren’t—that unexpectedly turns into a popular story, just in time for sweeps month when every rating point counts. Kramer, a television news producer reveals the inside story of a reporter balancing the two stories while navigating the cut-throat internal politics of the television newsroom. Totally committed to her job, Riley’s humor has a cynical edge which perfectly defines her character, and the relationship between Riley and Garnett, illuminated by their penchant for meeting in theaters and exchanging quotes from old movies, promises enjoyable development in future books. This engaging debut is nominated for an Anthony Award for Best First Novel.

Brian McGilloway
Borderlands (2007) introduces Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin from the small town of Lifford, Ireland. When the body of a 15-year-old girl is found on the Tyrone-Donegal border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Devlin takes the case since he recognizes the girl as a resident on his side of the border. The border was drawn in 1920 with no regard for geography or property rights, so the Borderlands is a confusing area where TV signals come from the north, and the electricity to run the TVs from the south. The girl is wearing a ring her family doesn’t recognize, and an old photograph is left with the flowers local mourners place at the site. This first murder in Devlin’s small town since 1883 seems at first to be the work of an itinerant “Traveler,” but the same photograph left with a second murder victim makes that unlikely. Devlin is a sympathetic protagonist with enough flaws to make his future development interesting. Though happily married with two children, Devlin fights his attraction to an old girlfriend and worries that his daughter’s beloved dog may be a livestock killer. This solid police procedural was nominated for the 2007 New Blood Dagger.

Eliot Pattison
Bone Rattler (2007) tells the story of Duncan McCallum, a Scottish prisoner convicted of harboring a traitor to the throne, who is indentured to the Ramsey Company of New York and transported to the New World in 1759. Two mysterious deaths aboard ship cause the captain to ask McCallum to use his medical training to examine the dead bodies for clues. The deaths are not resolved by the time the ship arrives in New York, though the Ramsey representative escorting the prisoners is eager to pin it on Mr. Lister, a trustee who has hidden his Highland heritage. In order to clear Lister, McCallum continues his investigation in the wilds of New York Colony, both helped and threatened by the English army, the Iroquois and other Native Americans, and the American Rangers. Pattison captures the flavor of the time in very human terms. The horror McCallum and the other prisoners feel when first faced with the Iroquois warriors highlights the disequilibrium of one culture dropped into a totally alien environment. The overlapping of these two unique cultures brings a unique time in American history to vivid life.

Christi Phillips
The Rossetti Letter (2007) tells the story of Alessandra Rossetti, a Venetian courtesan who wrote a letter warning of a Spanish plot against the government of Venice in 1681, and Claire Donovan, a modern woman writing her dissertation about that same Spanish Conspiracy. Claire lucks into a week in Venice in exchange for chaperoning a challenging teenager, and discovers that an established historian is writing a book discounting the Spanish Conspiracy as a myth created by powerful Venetians interested in discrediting Spain. Determined to find evidence to prove that Alessandra was a heroine and not a pawn, Claire dives into the primary documents of the period. Told from the viewpoints of both women, this engaging novel brings 17th century Venice to life, while revealing the detective quality of historical research.

Linda L. Richards
Death Was the Other Woman (2008) introduces Kitty Pangborn, daughter of a formerly wealthy father who crashed with the stock market in 1929 Los Angeles. Kitty gets a job as secretary to world weary private eye Dexter J. Theroux, experienced but prone to vanishing into a bottle to fight his lingering WWI memories. Dex takes a case for Rita Heppelwaite, mistress to the rich and shady Harrison Dempsey, and is asked to follow him that night. Since Dex is too tipsy to drive, Kitty takes the wheel, but they both fall asleep on stakeout. Waking and desperate to find a powder room, Kitty discovers a dead body in the bathtub. By the time the police arrive the next day, the body has disappeared and Dex is hired again, this time by the wife to find her missing husband. Dex and Kitty make an engaging pair, and Kitty’s snappy narration keeps the action solidly in 1930. This entertaining first in a new series is great fun.

Richard Yancey
The Highly Effective Detective (2006) introduces Teddy Ruzak, who failed police academy and became a security guard in Knoxville, Tennessee. When Teddy’s mother dies and unexpectedly leaves him a small fortune, Teddy decides to fulfill his lifetime dream of becoming a private detective. He rents an office and hires his favorite waitress as his secretary, but neglects to get a license since he doesn’t know he needs one. His first client is a man who witnessed a hit-and-run with six fatalities. The victims happen to be goslings, but Teddy is hot on the case, or would be if he had the slightest idea what to do. A month later he is still investigating when a woman tells him her stepmother went missing the same day the goslings were killed, and Teddy finds himself in the middle of a dangerous situation. Teddy is a unique and charming protagonist. His habit of free association during the middle of conversations, developed during endless nights alone on security duty, is hilarious and endearing. This funny and suspenseful cozy debut is a delight from cover to cover.

Dave Zeltserman
Small Crimes (2008) is the first person perspective of Joe Denton, just released from 7 years of soft time, out of 24 sentenced, which he mostly spent playing checkers with the warden in county jail and reading library books. Joe was a cop in Bradley County, Vermont, but he went wrong: bribery, cocaine, embezzlement, conspiracy with the Mob, and ultimately convicted of attempted murder and mayhem on the District Attorney. He neglected his wife and two daughters along the line, too, as he wallows in the vortex of drugs and corruption. Now, though, he vows to make things right—no more gambling, drugs, and all that, and he’s determined to get back with the family. His wife, his childhood sweetheart, divorced him and changed her name, and his two daughters don’t know him, but he’s on the right track now. His parents don’t seem to share his vision of how he’ll move in with them and rehabilitate himself. Plus, there are the pressures of the old gang, the still corrupt cops and the Mob, and those ever-fluctuating gambling debts. But Joe is determined to change his life, and he can be so convincing. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a Jim Thompson-type novel, and he does have his faults, a temper to violence, and there are drugs and sex around, too. This is a compelling, if depressing, book in an older tradition, and unlike many “couldn’t put it down”, this one is the real deal. This is the first of a trilogy of “bad guys just out of prison”, and we’ll be looking forward to the others. Pariah, the 2nd in the series, will be released in the US this fall.

Tasha Alexander
And Only To Deceive (2005) introduces Lady Emily Ashton, a young recent widow in Victorian London, England. Emily married Viscount Philip Ashton to escape her overbearing mother, and wasn’t too grieved when he died on safari a few months after their marriage. Though somewhat constricted by Victorian mourning norms, Emily enjoys her new freedom to make decisions for herself and becomes interested in Greek art and literature after discovering the art antiquities her husband donated to the British Museum. As Emily studies Greek and talks to Philip’s friends, she finally mourns the man she never knew. Then Emily begins to suspect that Philip was involved in art forgeries and stolen works from the British Museum, and sets out to discover the truth while juggling the courtships from two very different men. This Victorian cozy is suspenseful and romantic.

Kaye C. Hill
Dead Woman’s Shoes (2008) introduces Lexy Lomax, who runs away from her husband with a suitcase full of stolen money and a Chihuahua attack dog named Kinky. Lexy buys Otter’s End, a log cabin in Clopwolde-on-Sea, England, on the Internet from the son of the previous owner, recently dead from a heart attack. When Lexy answers the phone in her new home, she discovers the dead woman was a private investigator. Short on cash and determined not to spend the stolen money, Lexy agrees to take the case, following the wife of the caller for an unnamed reason she assumes is infidelity. Lexy soon picks up a second case, finding a missing cat, and a third, uncovering the writer of poison pen letters. When she finds the murdered body of the wife she is tailing, Lexy realizes she is in over her head, but keeps investigating since the client secrets she hasn’t told the police may keep them from solving the crime. This amusing debut will appeal to fans of traditional mysteries.

David Housewright
A Hard Ticket Home (2004) introduces Rushmore (Mac) McKenzie a cop from St. Paul, Minnesota, who has no hope of promotion after a shooting incident using a shotgun instead of his police-issued weapon. Mac quits the force after coming into an unexpected windfall, and with more money than he knows what to do with, works as an unlicesnsed private detective whenever the spirit moves him. A couple with a young daughter who needs a bone marrow transplant asks Mac to find their older daughter, Jamie, who ran away from home years ago. As Mac searches the seedy underbelly of the Twin Cities for clues about Jamie, he finds connections to drug dealers and respected businessmen. Mac is an appealing protagonist: tough, quick-witted, fond of music, and eager to offer a sno-cone to every visitor. Despite a high body count, this action-packed first in a series is balanced by the humorous tone and snappy dialogue.

Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish (2004) introduces Walt Longmire, the good-humored veteran sheriff in Absaroka County, Wyoming, where nothing much happens in the way of crime. When Cody Pritchard is found shot to death, everyone, including the police, assumes it was a hunting accident, but Walt is nagged by the memory that Cody and three friends were convicted of raping a young Cheyenne girl with fetal alcohol syndrome two years earlier. Because of their youth, the four boys were given suspended sentences, creating tension between the white and Native American communities. When the second of the four boys is found dead, Walt is sure someone is out for revenge, “the dish best served cold.” Walt fears that his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, the uncle of the girl, may be involved in the murders, especially after the police identify the weapon as a Sharps buffalo rifle. Engaging characters, a strong sense of place, and a twisting plot make this appealing book a highly recommended series start, especially for fans of Tony Hillerman and Steven F. Havill.

J. Sydney Jones
The Empty Mirror (2009) takes place in 1898 Vienna, Austria. Five bodies, all with noses sliced off, have been found on the grounds of the Prater amusement park over a two-month period. The latest victim was Gustav Klimt’s current model, who held an empty mirror up to the viewer in Nuda Veritas. When Klimt is charged with the crime, he calls on his old friend and lawyer Karl Werthen for help. Werthen in turn asks Dr. Hanns Gross, the father of modern criminology, whose early monographs may have inspired Sherlock Holmes, to assist in solving the murders. Eventually Werthen and Gross conclude that the current murders are connected in some way with the assassination of Empress Elisabeth and the earlier deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover Mary Vetsera. The investigation moves at a leisurely pace, reflecting the unhurried nature of life in that time and place. The mix of historical and imaginary characters is very well done. Klimt is portrayed as a vibrant and eccentric bear of a man—dressing in flowing caftans and painting even his society matron portraits first nude with clothing added later. The details about period medical techniques and the strange family of Emperor Franz Josef are fascinating, adding depth to this fine historical mystery.

Charles McCarry
The Miernik Dossier (1973) is the story of a group of international agents who set out on a road trip from Geneva to deliver a Cadillac to Prince Kalash el Khatar’s father in Sudan. Paul Christopher is an American agent, Nigel Collins is a British agent, Ilona Bentley is English-Hungarian, Tadeusz Miernik is a Polish scientist who may be a Communist plant. Narrated entirely in official communications, dossier notes, transcripts of conversations, and diary entries, the investigations and deceptions of each character slowly emerge. A fascinating study of the power of suspicion to create its own reality, this thought-provoking spy book is an amazing first novel.

Malla Nunn
A Beautiful Place To Die (2008) is set in 1952 in Jacob’s Rest, South Africa, a small town on the border with Mozambique. New apartheid laws have just been enacted and Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman from Johannesburg, has been sent to investigate a supposed hoax call that turns out to be the murder of Captain Pretorius, a local Afrikaner policeman whose family owns most of the town. Emmanuel begins the investigation with the help of Constable Shabalala, a Zulu who grew up with Pretorius, but two thuggish officers from the powerful Security Branch soon arrive, convinced that the murder must be the work of the black communist radicals. Emmanuel manages to stay in town with the pretense of investigating a Peeping Tom who preys on black and coloured women, but he knows that it is only a matter of time before the Security police figure out he is still looking for the real murderer. Emmanuel is a sympathetic protagonist, determined to find the truth at great personal risk while battling shell shock in the form of severe headaches and a voice from the trenches. This powerful debut novel is a gripping story of corruption and the oppressive injustice of apartheid in one of the most beautiful settings in the world.

Carol O’Connell
Mallory’s Oracle (1994) introduces Kathleen Mallory, a New York City cop with the soul of a thief. A feral child rescued from the streets at age 10 by Detective Louis Markowitz, Mallory grew to love her adoptive parents and found an outlet for her criminal tendencies in computer science, eventually finding a home in the police Computer Division. When Louis is killed by a serial killer targeting wealthy widows, Mallory is placed on compassionate leave. Compelled to track down and punish his killer, she joins forces with Charles Butler, an eccentric consultant with a photographic memory. This character-driven thriller is an amazing debut novel with a unique protagonist. Mallory seems to have few moral guidelines of her own, relying instead on cues picked up from her parents, rules she doesn’t totally understand. She is loyal, driven, intelligent, and emotionally alienated from the world around her. As she pieces together the evidence leading to the killer, we slowly begin to understand Mallory herself.

Michael Robotham
The Suspect (2004) is the story of Joseph O’Loughlin, a psychologist in London, England. Joe has a wife, a young daughter, and has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which he is trying to keep secret. Joe advises prostitutes about ways to keep themselves safe, so Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz asks his opinion about the unidentified and disfigured body of a murdered woman believed to be a prostitute. It is only after Joe has given his insights that he realizes he knew the murdered woman—a former patient who accused him of harassment after he rebuffed her advances. Joe is soon the prime suspect and hides from the police in order to conduct his own investigation. He fears another patient, who tells him of violent dreams, has something to do with the murder. Moving at a relentless pace, this psychological thriller has a sympathetic and believable protagonist who struggles with professional ethics while trying to think his way out of the steadily mounting evidence against him.

Mary Willis Walker
The Red Scream (1994) introduces Molly Cates, a true-crime writer and reporter in Austin, Texas. Molly’s book about serial killer Louie Bronk, the Texas Scalper, has just come out and Louie’s execution date is a week away. Louie has requested that Molly be a witness at his execution, and she is planning the article she will write when Charlie McFarland, the wealthy real estate developer whose wife, Tiny, was Louie’s last victim, finally consents to an interview. But all he wants is to bribe Molly not to talk to his daughter or to write about the execution. Molly receives an anonymous letter with an imitation of Louie’s jailhouse poetry, which she quoted in her book, and Charlie’s current wife is murdered and “scalped” in the same manner as Louie’s victims. Louie states that he can prove he didn’t kill Tiny, the only capital crime he was convicted of, and Molly begins to worry that he might be telling the truth. The knowledge that Louie was certainly guilty of the earlier murders poses a dilemma for Molly: should she investigate, discredit her book, and help release a killer? Molly’s relationship with her grown daughter and police detective ex-husband add human interest to this thriller.

A.C. Baantjer
DeKok and the Mask of Death (Dutch 1987) [English 2000] [new US edition from Speck Press due July 1, 2009] is the 27th title in the long-running Dutch police detective series featuring Inspector Jurriaan DeKok (in English translations) and his loyal sidekick Inspector Dick Vledder, homicide detectives at Amsterdam's Warmoes Street station. Women are going to Slotervaart Hospital and disappearing, their existence later denied by the hospital staff. There are enough suspicions surrounding the women’s lovers and associates to completely confuse investigators, but with DeKok and Vledder on the case, it is only a matter of time. One can’t judge the entire series by one or two titles, of course, but this book was quite entertaining, with a compelling story and enjoyable characters. This title was more fun than the only other DeKok we've read — the 6th, DeKok and the Dead Harlequin (1968) [1993], which suffered a bit from an apparent attempt at updating from 1968. Reading the series in order would be our inclination, but they are hard to find, not all have been translated (including the 1st and 4th), and the newest printing isn’t coming out in order.

C.J. Box
Blue Heaven (2008) takes place in Kootenai Bay, a small town in north Idaho nicknamed Blue Heaven because of the large number of retired LAPD officers. Annie (12) and her brother William (10) witness a murder while fishing, and run when they are spotted by the killers. Quickly realizing that the murderers are searching for them, the children hide in the barn of a sympathetic rancher, Jess Rawlins. At first doubtful, Jess is persuaded that the ex-cops helping the sheriff search for the missing children are indeed a bad bunch. In fact, the bad ex-cops are violent, well organized, and appear to have the local sheriff working for them. Though some characters are somewhat one-dimensional — the good are devoted to protecting the innocent, and the bad concerned only with their own self interest — others struggle with doing the right thing in a difficult situation. This fast-paced thriller just received the 2009 Edgar Best Novel award.

James Crumley
The Last Good Kiss (1978) introduces C.W. Sughrue, a private investigator and bartender based in Montana. Sughrue is hired by a famous author’s ex-wife to find Abraham Trahearne, who has been on an extended drunk. When Sughrue finally catches up with Trahearne, he is drinking with an alcoholic bulldog in a bar in Sonoma, California. The bar owner asks Sughrue to look into the disappearance of her daughter, Betty Sue, 10 years earlier from Haight-Ashbury. The author, bulldog, and investigator set out to return Trahearne to his family while looking into the missing girl and stopping at every bar along the way. The search soon becomes obsessive for Sughrue as he uncovers layer after layer of the past. Sughrue is a complex character. He teeters on the edge of alcoholism, hasn’t much patience with the law, and has a strong desire for justice. A completely hard-boiled detective, he is relaxed, cynical, and completely committed to his job. The beautiful prose of this highly recommended novel transcends the detective genre while remaining completely true to it.

Dianne Day
The Strange Files of Fremont Jones (1995) introduces young independent-minded Caroline Fremont Jones, who sheds her first name when leaving Boston for San Francisco in 1905 to set up a typewriting service. She finds lodging in a Victorian house, and is convinced by her landlady that the other lodger, Michael Archer, is a spy. Fremont’s first client is Justin Cameron, a young lawyer who finds her very attractive. Her second client is Edgar Allan Partridge, a strange and frightened man who asks her to type a manuscript of gothic horror stories, hands her a overly generous payment, and then flees while muttering about being followed. Another client is Li Wong, an old Chinese gentleman who is murdered soon after his visit. Concerned about the death of Li Wong, Fremont ventures into the exotic world of Chinatown. Partridge never returns to claim his manuscript, and convinced that the tales have at least some basis in fact, Fremont tries to locate the settings for the stories, which she hopes will lead to Partridge himself. The wonderfully scary tales are amply quoted throughout the book. Winner of the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery, this entertaining novel captures the mystery, danger, and beauty of San Francisco at the turn of the 19th century.

Morag Joss
The Night Following (2008) is narrated by a woman who discovers her husband has been having an affair. She is so upset she accidently hits and kills a woman on a bicycle. Fleeing the scene, she retreats to her house and slowly starts to fall apart. She realizes her empty life is devoid of purpose, and that she has never been happy. After reading in the paper about the overwhelming grief of Arthur, the widower, she begins to watch over him. Following the directions of his grief counselor, Arthur writes letters to Ruth, his dead wife. At first very short, the letters grow longer as he gradually begins to believe Ruth has come back to him. He also reads chapters of a book Ruth was working on, which tells the story of the women in a multi-generational family with disturbing parallels to our narrator’s past. The three narrations are masterfully woven together in this haunting novel of loss, grief, and deception. Highly recommended, this beautifully written book is nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Justin Peacock
A Cure for Night (2008) is narrated by Joel Deveraux, who loses his job at a top law firm because of drug problems and ends up with the Brooklyn Public Defender’s office, where he finds himself handling arraignments for addicts and dealers. Offered second chair to Myra Goldstein in a murder case where a black dealer is charged with murdering a white college student, Joel jumps at the chance for more interesting work. Peacock has a great ear for dialog, and the minor characters ring true. Both the culture of overworked public defenders and the drug culture of the housing projects are realistically yet compassionately portrayed. As the courtroom drama proceeds, it it becomes evident that neither truth nor justice are the goal, but the creation of a plausible story that will sway the jury. This fast moving and thought provoking debut novel is nominated for the Edgar Best First Novel Award.

Johan Theorin
Echoes from the Dead (Swedish 2007, English 2008) joins Julia Davidsson 20 years after her young son Jens disappeared into the fall fog without a trace on the island of Öland, Sweden. Julia’s estranged father Gerlof, a retired sea captain now crippled with arthritis, has received Jens’s sandal in the mail. Gerlof convinces Julia, who has been sunk in depression for the last 20 years, to return to the island to help him search. Gerlof suspects that Nils Kant, a murderer who supposedly died before Jens was born, is involved in the disappearance. As Julia and Gerlof search back through the past, they slowly begin to reconnect. Alternating chapters fill in the back story of Nils Kant as the present investigation moves toward the truth. Compelling characters and a beautifully remote landscape make this haunting novel unforgettable. This is the first in a planned quartet, one book for each season of the year on the island of Öland.

Jeri Westerson
Veil of Lies (2008) introduces Crispin Guest, a disgraced knight reduced to living by his wits on the mean streets of 1384 London. Now known as “Tracker,” Crispin is hired by a wealthy London cloth merchant who suspects his wife is unfaithful. Crispin is reluctant to take that sort of case, but a severe shortage of funds persuades him to go against his principles. The next day the merchant is found murdered in a room locked from the inside, and the wife hires Crispin to find the killer and a missing religious relic. Crispin is soon caught up in a mesh of conflicting interests: the sheriff who wants the relic for the king, a mysterious Saracen working for an equally mysterious cartel, and a gang of ruthless Italians. Crispin falls for the girl, uses his knightly skills to fight for his life, and relentlessly pursues justice in this thoroughly enjoyable Medieval Noir.

Rhys Bowen
A Royal Pain (2008) takes place in June 1932. Lady Georgiana, the 34th in line for the British throne, has finally mastered making tea and toast and is beginning to feel that she can manage living independently in London. But then the queen asks her to host Princess Hannelore of Bavaria and Georgie has to beg her brother for a temporary allowance to cover staff and food. The princess arrives with a forbidding baroness as a chaperone, an even more dour maid, and a hilarious version of English learned from American gangster films. Just out of convent school, Hanni is boy crazy and chases after every attractive man she meets. When one young man dies after falling off a 6th floor balcony during a party, and another acquaintance is stabbed, the queen asks Georgie to try and catch the killer before the visiting princess has to testify at the inquests. Georgie is an endearing narrator: charming yet clumsy, full of wisdom about royal protocol but hopelessly naive about life in London. This light-hearted sequel to Her Royal Spyness (2007) was a finalist for the Bruce Alexander Award and is nominated for the Agatha Best Novel Award.

Christa Faust
Money Shot (2008) is narrated by Angel Dare, a former porn star now running an adult model agency in Los Angeles, California. One day Angel is asked by Sam, a porn producer and friend, to co-star in a film with the hot new male star Jessie Black. Close to 40, Angel is regretting her lost youth and is convinced to come back for one last film. Arriving at the set, she is beaten, raped, and left for dead in the trunk of a car since she doesn’t know where the briefcase full of money that Jessie and his gangster friends are sure was last seen in her office. And that’s just the start of the book! Escaping from the trunk, Angel finds herself on the run, charged with the murder of Sam, but is determined to get revenge against Jessie and his friends. Angel is tough, smart, and funny. She manages to stay upbeat even while bleeding from several gunshot wounds and dressed only in a very smelly garbage bag, making this Edgar Nominee for Best Paperback an enjoyable thriller.

Michael Gregorio
Critique of Criminal Reason (2006) is set in 1904 Konisberg, Prussia. Hanno Stiffeniis, a young magistrate, is called from the countryside to investigate a series of murders. Since the bodies have no visible wound, the people fear the work of the devil. Though aged and infirm, Immanuel Kant has collected and preserved physical evidence from the earlier murders to aid the investigation. A former student of Kant, Stiffeniis is determined to use Kant’s new rational method of analysis rather than the current method of gathering circumstantial evidence and then convincing the suspect to confess. Dense and literary, this psychological historical thriller is solidly set in its time and place.

Declan Hughes
The Price of Blood (2008) is the third book in the Ed Loy series. Back home in Dublin, Ireland, after 20 years in Los Angeles, California, Loy is working as a private investigator. Recommended by Tommy, the shifty friend from his youth now filling in as sacristan, Loy is hired by Father Vincent Tyrrell to find Patrick Hutton, a jockey who has been missing for 10 years. Loy discovers that Hutton rode for Father Tyrrell’s brother, F.X. Tyrrell, and disappeared after a notorious fixed race. A body is found that Loy suspects is Hutton, and then two other people connected to the Tyrrell family are murdered. As usual, Loy drinks too much, sleeps too little, falls for a completely unsuitable woman, is roughed up by gangsters, and struggles to come to terms with his own past. Beginning on Christmas Eve and ending with the four-day Leopardstown Racecourse Christmas Festival, Loy works pretty much round the clock to delve far enough into the dark secrets of the Tyrrell family to find the motivation for the current murders. Often brutal, this fast-paced intelligent suspense novel is nominated for the Edgar Best Novel Award.

N.M. Kelby
Murder at the Bad Girl’s Bar & Grill (2008) tells the story of a gated Florida beach community. Danni Keene, the owner of the Bad Girl’s Bar & Grill, is a retired horror-film actress famous for her screaming. Danni isn’t having a good week: the local flock of vultures attacked the body of a homeless man left in her dumpster, her car was torched, her current singer who channels Barry Manilow is so bad that other patrons have chained themselves to the tiki god of fertility in protest, and three bright pink circus buses have set up camp in her parking lot. When the body of the singer is also found in the same dumpster, Danni decides to try and figure out what is going on, aided by a mixed bag of assistants: Sòlas MacKay, the head circus puppet artist, Brian Wilson, the security guard, and Sophie, the blind daughter of the stun-gun toting community tycoon on a quest to find the perfect wines to pair with junk food. The local chapter of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watcher’s Club, a cranky wounded vulture, and a spoiled shih tsu dog add to the fun in this wacky Lefty nominated novel.

Richard Price
Lush Life (2008) examines a random shooting in New York City. Ike Marcus, a bartender, is killed late one night while with two friends. Eric Cash says it was a mugging gone bad, the other friend is in a drunken stupor and can’t say anything, and two eyewitnesses say that the three men were alone on the street. Eric is held and questioned by the police until his friend regains consciousness and corroborates the mugging. The point of view alternates among Eric Cash, whose life grows steadily more hopeless after the crime; Matty Clark, the police detective investigating the shooting; Tristan Acevedo, a teenager from the projects who has a gun; Ike’s grieving father Billy, who follows the police around trying to help with the investigation; and the Quality of Life Task Force, four cops who roam the streets in a taxi. This amazingly dense and detailed police procedural brings the world of the Lower East side to life through realistic dialog and character development.

Stella Rimington
At Risk (2004) introduces Liz Carlyle, an agent in MI-5’s Joint Counter-Terrorist Group, based in London, England. The group suspects that an “invisible,” a terrorist who is an ethnic native and able to move about unnoticed, has entered England. Then a fisherman is shot with an unusual armor-piercing gun favored by foreign agents, leading Liz to suspect that the invisible has been joined by a known terrorist smuggled into the country. Solving the identity of the invisible appears to be the only way to figure out the target in time to prevent the act of terrorism. An uneasy alliance between MI-5, MI-6, local police, and the military is formed as the investigation proceeds. Told from several perspectives, this thriller presents realistic characters with individual flaws and quirks. Even the terrorists, motivated by deep emotional pain rather than crazed religious motives, are believable. Rimington, a former director general of MI-5, has written an amazing spy procedural that gives an insider’s look behind the scenes of a modern terrorist investigation.

Roger Smith
Mixed Blood (2009) follows the travails of Jack Burn, an American whose gambling addiction and some serious crimes start him on a slippery slope to Cape Town, South Africa, where he hides out with his wife and young son. Not a good choice, in Jack’s case, because a chance home invasion by some local drugged-out gangsters draws him and his family ever deeper into a sea of inescapable violence. The poverty, hopelessness, and turmoil of Cape Town is portrayed frankly and unapologetically, and also with sympathy, but in this brutal noir world, almost no characters can escape. Smith creates memorable characters, including “Gatsby” Barnard, a vicious lone-wolf Afrikaaner cop, Disaster Zondi, a neat-freak Zulu detective from the new order, Benny Mongrel, an ex-con gang killer trying to turn things around, and Carmen Fortune, a crack addict surviving day to day with her damaged son and her Uncle Fatty. Smith’s writing is direct, clear, and compelling; the book is highly recommended for those who can stomach the violence.

Alex Carr
The Prince of Bagram Prison (2008) is the story of war and intrigue which begins with the birth of a baby in the prison infirmary by one of the “disappeared” imprisoned during the brutal reign of Morocco’s Hassan II. Many years later, while stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Kat Caldwell, Army intelligence fluent in Arabic, interrogates Jamal, a young Moroccan boy arrested with a group of suspected terrorists. Kat determines Jamal is not a terrorist, and he is placed in Madrid by the CIA. Three years later, when Harry Comfort, his sympathetic CIA handler, retires, Jamal pretends to know more than he does in order to please his new handler. Quickly realizing this pretense has put his life in danger, Jamal flees back to Morocco and Kat is sent to help find him by CIA chief Dick Morrow. The shifting perspectives and time switches add to the unsettling nature of this book. Motivated by a complex mixture of love, betrayal, suspicion, and guilt, the characters try to make sense of a world of compromise and deceit. This intense thriller is an Edgar nominee for Best Paperback Original.

Sarah Caudwell
Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981) tells the story of young barrister Julia Larwood, who takes an Art Lover’s Holiday tour of Italy in order to forget her troubles with the Inland Revenue. When the body of a fellow tourist, a handsome young Inland Revenue agent, is found with Julia’s inscribed copy of the Finance Act, she is charged with the crime. Narrated by Hilary Tamar, a medieval law professor in Oxford, England, this witty and clever novel is a gem. Hilary’s prose is relentlessly pedantic, “My hypothesis is a meretricious little thing, hired out to you, as it were, for half an hour’s casual diversion…”, and her portrayal of the other supporting characters is hilarious. This first of a 4-book series is highly recommended for readers who enjoy subtle plotting with a very English touch.

Tom Epperson
The Kind One (2008) is the story of Danny Landon who lives in 1930s Los Angeles, and works for mobster Bud Seitz. Danny doesn’t remember anything before being hit in the head with a lead pipe 10 months ago, which left him with a limp, severe headaches, and a grove in his skull. The rest of the guys call him Two Gun Danny, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with guns, and isn’t even sure he likes being a gangster. Danny does like Darla, Bud’s beautiful young mistress, and Bud trusts Danny enough to make him Darla’s bodyguard. Bud’s vicious nature (he was nicknamed “The Kind One” by a former mistress after a particularly brutal killing) is a sharp contrast to Danny’s reflective humanity. As Danny struggles to figure out where he fits into the gangster world, he befriends two misfit neighbors: an abused and neglected girl and a lonely older man. Nominated for the 2009 Edgar for Best First Novel, this beautifully written noir thriller slowly builds to a violent and surprising climax.

John Harwood
The Ghost Writer (2004) tells the story of Gerard Freeman, a young Australian boy who loved listening to his mother’s reminiscences about her childhood in an English country manor. One afternoon he discovers the key to her locked drawer and finds an old picture, and later a supernatural story he suspects was written by his grandmother, Viola. He tells his English pen-friend, Alice, everything. Twenty years later he travels to London to try to unravel the story of his family’s past and perhaps to finally meet Alice in person. Interspersed with Viola’s supernatural tales, this impressive gothic suspense debut novel slowly builds the tension to the very last page.

Philip Kerr
March Violets (1989) introduces Bernie Gunther in 1936 Berlin, Germany. This historical mystery is full of fascinating details. Soon to be the site of the Olympics, the book starts with the temporary removal of street showcases featuring drawings from Der Stürmer, the Reich’s violently anti-Semitic journal, in order to avoid shocking the foreign visitors coming to Berlin for the Games. Bernie has left the increasingly corrupt police force to become a private detective and is hired by Hermann Six, a rich businessman, to recover some diamonds that were stolen during a burglary that left Six’s daughter and son-in-law dead. Bernie discovers that the son-in-law was an SS agent, and that secret documents hidden in the safe may have been the real reason for the theft and murders. His investigation uncovers possible connections between Six and organized crime, and between Herman Goering and the theft. The hard-boiled wise-cracking Bernie is an appealing character who is willing to do just about anything to get to the truth. He is interrogated by the Gestapo and sent to Dachau, all the while battling the March Violets, new members of the Nazi party who joined in order to be on the side in power. Kerr does an amazing job of showing how the Nazis take total control of the country, and how people can be deluded into believing what they are told, no matter how implausible.

Mehmet Murat Somer
The Kiss Murder (2008) is narrated by a nameless transvestite nightclub hostess and computer technician by day, in Istanbul, Turkey. Though mainly concerned with maintaining her flawless Audrey Hepburn-like appearance, our narrator is drawn into an investigation of the murder of a fellow drag queen, who kept secret pictures and letters documenting her affair with a powerful man. Luckily our self-absorbed narrator is also a master of Thai-kickboxing, since the search for the secret cache stirs up all kinds of trouble. The unique viewpoint provides a fascinating look at modern Turkish life (should the drag queens pray with the men or the women at the funeral?) spiced with our narrator’s self-confident wit.

John Straley
The Woman Who Married a Bear (1992) introduces Cecil Younger, an alcoholic private investigator in Sitka, Alaska. Cecil is hired by Tlingit elder to find out why her son, a hunting guide, was killed by one of his employees. The killer, who hears voices, has been tried and convicted, but the woman needs to understand what motivated her son’s death. After taking the case, Cecil’s roommate is shot, and Cecil begins to suspect that the man in jail is not the real murderer. This suspenseful book is beautifully written with rich details of Alaskan life, strong character development, and masterful interweaving of Tlingit mythology and disturbing hints of racial prejudice.

Jincy Willet
The Writing Class tells the story of Amy Gallup, a promising writer in her youth, who is now a middle-aged and teaching adult education extension courses in fiction writing. Amy is a loner who is frightened of being alone, a blocked writer who can only write clever lists on the blog she considers private. She lives with a basset hound who merely tolerates her and has no friends. The 13 students in her new class at first seem totally hopeless, but they coalesce into a decent group and Amy finds herself enjoying the class meetings. Then someone in the class begins writing cruel critiques, making threatening phone calls, and playing frightening practical jokes. When one of the class members is found dead, possibly murdered, Amy informs the administration, and the class is immediately canceled. But the rest of the group want to continue, and they meet to try and figure out which class member is the murderer. This black comedy is often laugh-out-loud funny, especially at the beginning of the book, and the suspense builds to the final pages.

Karin Alvtegen
Missing is the story of Sibylla Forenström, a 32-year old drifter on the streets of Stockholm. Dressed in her best thrift-store suit, Sibylla cons a wealthy businessman into buying her dinner and a hotel room in a fancy hotel. When the police arrive the next morning she assumes the con has been exposed and flees. But the man has been brutally murdered, and the police identify Sibylla’s fingerprints and charge her with the crime, revealing that she disappeared from a mental institution 15 years earlier. Two other murders follow, and Sibylla, whose survival on the streets depends on her anonymity, finds she is now the most wanted criminal in Sweden with her face on every newspaper. A fortuitous encounter with a 15-year-old loner with computer talents provides Sibylla with an ally who is eager to help her track down the real serial killer. Throughout the book, Sibylla’s past is slowly revealed, adding depth to this well-written thriller. Originally published in Sweden in 2000, Missing came out in the US in 2008 and is a finalist for the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Mystery.

Vicki Delany
In the Shadow of the Glacier (2007) takes place in the small mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, Canada. When the first murder in memorable history occurs, veteran Detective Sergeant John Winters, a homicide detective relocated from Vancouver, is partnered with enthusiastic rookie constable Molly Smith, born and raised in Trafalgar. The victim, Reg Montgomery, was right in the middle of a town conflict. An American Vietnam draft dodger has left money to the town for a park to honor fellow draft dodgers. The business community, led by Montgomery, opposed the park as bad for tourism. Smith’s mother, a long-time activist, leads the local group supporting the park. Smith’s father, also an American draft dodger, is unsure of his stance. The awkward partnering of Winters’s investigative experience with Smith’s local knowledge provides additional conflict as both grow to appreciate the other’s strengths.

Zoë Ferraris
Finding Nouf (2008) is set in modern Saudi Arabia. When 16-year-old Nouf goes missing, her wealthy family hires Nayir ash-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. When Nouf’s body is discovered in the desert, her brother Othman asks Nayir to keep investigating even though the rest of the family is content to accept the verdict of accidental death. Nayir, a Palestinian usually mistaken for a Bedouin, was orphaned as a small child and raised by a bachelor uncle. His greatest regret is that he had no sister, and so knows nothing of women, who are segregated in the rigid Muslim society. Katya Hijazi, Othman’s fiancee who works in the women’s lab of the coroners department, is eager to help with the investigation. Shy and religious Nayir is uncomfortable working with a woman, but realizes there is no other way to enter the secret female world. Nayir struggles to balance his need for female companionship with his religious beliefs, and Katya tries to maintain traditional female modesty while satisfying her need for a fulfilling career. This compelling mystery provides a fascinating look at life in modern Saudi Arabia where fur coats are given as bridal gifts even though sandal soles melt on the sidewalks and drivers carry pot-holders to avoid burns from door handles. Highly recommended, this first novel was a finalist for the 2008 New Blood Dagger Award. APA: The Night of the Mi’raj

David Fuller
Sweetsmoke (2008) takes place in 1862. Cassius is a skilled carpenter and secretly literate slave on the Sweetsmoke tobacco plantation in Virginia. When Emmoline, a freed slave who once saved his life, is murdered, no one but Cassius cares enough to find her killer. Her death is the catalyst that shocks Cassius out of the despair caused by his wife’s death four years ago. The dangerous search leads Cassius off the plantation, where he meets slave traders, black-marketeers, Confederate and Union soldiers, Underground Railroad conspirators, and Northern spies. Cassius’s encounters with the other characters on and off the plantation paint a vivid portrait of the demeaning daily suffering of the slaves, and the horrors of civil war. The interactions between Cassius and Hoke Howard, the plantation owner, are a complicated mix of respect, menace, and love, showing the impossibility of a true relationship between master and slave. This powerful debut novel, more a Civil War historical than a mystery, illuminates a dark chapter in American history. Nominated for 2009 Edgar Award for Best First Mystery

Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden 2005, US 2008) is the first of a trilogy set in Sweden. Financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of libel and is at loose ends while waiting for his jail sentence. He is hired by Henrik Vanger, a retired industrialist, to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet who disappeared forty years ago. Blomkvist reluctantly agrees to take on the task, as well as the cover story of writing a Vanger family history, since Vanger promises new evidence in the libel case as partial payment. Blomkvist joins forces with Lisbeth Salander, a strange and tattooed researcher and hacker, and they begin to unearth unpleasant secrets in the Vanger family history while searching for new evidence in the Harriet disappearance. This large and intelligent thriller is a compelling read that addresses serious issues like the failure of the State social system and sexual violence through the development of complex and unforgettable characters. Part thriller/mystery and part social commentary, this powerful novel is highly recommended.

Deon Meyer
Devil’s Peak (2007) tells the story of three damaged people in South Africa. Thobela Mpayipheli is a former mercenary trying to make a new life when his young son is killed in a store robbery. Christine van Rooyen is a young woman who has become a sex worker to support her young daughter. Benny Griessel is an alcoholic police inspector whose wife has just thrown him out of the house. When the men who killed his son escape from jail and the police cannot find them, Thobela takes matters into his own hands. Frustrated by having no luck tracking the killers, Thobela uses a tribal sword to kill others who have committed crimes against children and eluded the justice system. Griessel is assigned to investigate the killings, and slowly the three threads of the story come together. A powerful examination of vigilante justice and the moral consequences of revenge, this book is highly recommended.

Jo Nesbø
The Redbreast is a masterful weaving of parallel narrations. One thread is in WWII with the Norwegians fighting for Hitler on the eastern front. A second is in modern day Oslo, Norway, where recovering-alcoholic Detective Harry Hole has been reassigned to the Security Service. A third follows an assassin also in modern Oslo. While tracking neo-Nazis, Hole discovers a mystery with roots in the past and the threads begin to come together. Stubborn and determined, Hole manages to worm his way back into the crime division far enough to use their resources to pursue his investigation. Hole is an appealing protagonist who moves at his own pace as does this thought-provoking and highly recommended thriller. The Redbreast is third in the Harry Hole series (2000), the first in English translation (2006).

Charlie Newton
Calumet City (2008) is the story of Patti Black, Chicago’s most decorated cop. Though Patti lives alone with her two goldfish in the same ghetto she grew up in, she is content with rugby and her job to fill her time. During a routine drug bust that turns violent, the cops discover the body of a woman manacled inside a basement room. When the woman is identified as Patti’s former foster mother, she fears that the horrors of her past will come to light. With the help of a newspaper reporter friend, Patti searches for her abusive foster father who she knows is responsible for the new murders, and whose very existence threatens the relative peace and safety she has built for herself since running away 18 years ago. Narrated in Patti’s voice, this powerful novel creates an unforgettable character. A finalist for the 2009 Edgar Award for Best First Mystery, this noir thriller moves at an unrelenting pace from one shocking event to the next.

Jim Butcher
Storm Front (2000) introduces Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in the yellow pages in Chicago, Illinois. The police have Dresden on retainer to help with unusual crimes, and the two bodies whose hearts have exploded from their chests definitely qualify. Dresden has no doubt that this is serious (and illegal) black magic and begins to investigate the how in order to identify the who with the help of a sex-obsessed skull named Bob. Along the way, Dresden questions a greedy faery and a very hungry vampire before battling a demon and a few scorpions. Luckily, Dresden is very good at what he does, both as an investigator and as a wizard. This humorous blend of mystery and fantasy is perfect escapist fiction.

Leighton Gage
Blood of the Wicked (2007) introduces Mario Silva, chief inspector for criminal matters of the federal police of Brazil, dispatched to a remote town in the interior to investigate the shooting of a bishop. Silva and his assistants find themselves in the middle of a confrontation between the landless peasants and the powerful owners of vast estates. The corrupt local state police force is more frightening than the criminals and the local judge has no interest in justice. Pressured by his boss to solve the case quickly without offending any of the wealthy landowners, Silva and his team have to convince the oppressed to speak out against the powerful. Buried Strangers, the 2nd in the series, will be released this month.

Peter Helton
Headcase (2005) introduces Chris Honeysett, a painter and private investigator, in Bath, England. Chris is a witty narrator and a sympathetic protagonist. He is knowledgeable about art and people, hopelessly infatuated with his classic Citroen, and a gourmet cook who loves seafood. Chris is hired to investigate the theft of several paintings from a local estate, and is intrigued that the thief passed over several more valuable paintings. As that investigation slowly progresses, Chris discovers the brutally murdered body of an old friend who managed a residence for mental-health patients. Though warned by the police to keep his distance, Chris can’t help searching for her killer. Another sub-plot or two add to the confusion in this action-packed mystery.

Ward Larsen
Stealing Trinity (2008) is an engaging spy thriller set in the summer of 1945, as Nazi spies attempt a final coup, to steal atomic bomb secrets. Alex Braun, an American-born and educated Nazi soldier, is dropped off the US coast by submarine to find “Die Wespe” (The Wasp), the embedded German spy in the Manhattan Project. But Major Thatcher, a determined, one-legged British intelligence officer, is on the case and the chase is on, from society “cottages” of Newport, Rhode Island, where Alex “Brown’s” former girlfriend lives, to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and then to the South Pacific. Intrigue, double-cross, cliff-hanging escapes, and bumbling military and FBI bureaucracies make for a compelling story. The author’s knowledge of military history provides a solid foundation for the story.

G.M. Malliet
Death of a Cozy Writer (2008) is a humorous tribute to the classic English country house mystery. The cozy writer in question is Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk, who has grown rich writing about Miss Rampling, his amateur sleuth who solves murders in the small village of Saint Edmund-Under-Stowe. After spending years alienating his four grown children by re-writing his will every month or so, Sir Adrian lures them all back to the family estate by announcing his forthcoming marriage to Violet Middenhall. Hoping to talking him out of an unsuitable marriage, the four squabbling siblings troop down to Chambridgeshire, and are soon all under investigation by the redoubtable Detective Inspector St. Just, ably assisted by Sergeant Fear. Sure to appeal to fans of Christie and Wodehouse, this book had me hooked from the 2nd page when a character observed while glancing at the obituaries that all the unimportant people seemed to die in alphabetical order.

Matt Beynon Rees
In A Grave in Gaza (2008) Omar Yussef Sirhan, a 50-ish schoolteacher in a Palestinian refugee camp, travels from Bethlehem with UN observer Magnus Wallender to inspect the UN schools in the Gaza Strip. Upon arrival they learn that a UN teacher has been arrested on spying charges after making public the university’s policy of selling degrees to the secret police. When Wallender is kidnapped as an exchange for an imprisoned murderer, Omar Yussef is caught in a confusing maze of torture, traditional ideas of tribal revenge, rival government gangs armed with machine guns, and smuggled missiles. Omar Yussef moves through this dust-choked and thoroughly corrupt atmosphere in somewhat of a daze, yet he manages to hold on to his humanity and ideals of justice as he eventually ties all the threads together. The richly detailed prose creates a sympathetic portrait of a violent and wounded society as it brings this compelling setting to life. (2nd in the series following The Collaborator of Bethlehem)

Kelli Stanley
Nox Dormienda (2008) introduces Arcturus, a half-British, half-Roman doctor who is the physician of Agricola, the provincial governor of Britannia in 83 AD. When a Syrian spy, possibly carrying a message terminating Agricola's tenure, is found dead, Arcturus is asked by Agricola to find the truth. It’s December, and Arturus’s toga is usually soaked and trailing mud, as he walks the mean streets of Londinium that are teeming with citizens, freedmen, slaves, whores, politicians, and Druids. History comes alive in this “Roman Noir” that seamlessly weaves details of daily life (honey is an approved medical treatment!) into a fast-paced and fascinating mystery.

Louise Ure
Forcing Amaryllis (2005): Years earlier, Calla’s sister Amaryllis was brutally raped and left for dead. Amaryllis refused to say much about the attack, tried to commit suicide soon after, and has been in a coma ever since. Calla works as a trial consultant for civil cases, but is forced by her unsympathetic boss to work for the law firm representing a man accused of a rape and murder. The new case has enough similarities with her sister’s rape to shock Calla out of her torpor and into an investigation of the seven-year old crime against her sister. With the help of a friend in the Arizona police department and a private detective, Calla tracks down other rape victims and begins to build a tenuous theory that may identify the man behind the crimes. This chilling novel won the 2006 Shamus Award for Best First Novel.

Kate Atkinson
One Good Turn (2006) finds Jackson Brodie, the former cop and recently-retired private investigator at loose ends in Edinburgh, attending the summer festival with Julia, his theatrically-minded female companion. A car accident and road-rage incident sets things in motion, and a cloud of intriguing characters going about their seemingly random business eventually coalesce into a plot, as in Atkinson’s first Brodie book, Case Histories (2004). A hit man, an attractive female Edinburgh police detective, a shady real estate developer and his wife, a wimpy pseudonymous mystery writer, some Russian housemaids and escorts, and other well-crafted characters, interesting in their own right, swarm through the book on their way to a fitting conclusion. Atkinson’s writing is delightful, compelling, rich, and humorous.

Gyles Brandreth
Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance (2008) introduces an unusually observant amateur sleuth: Oscar Wilde, poet, wit, and playwright. When Wilde discovers the murdered body of a beautiful young man, he enlists his friends Robert Sherard, great-grandson of Wordsworth, and Arthur Conan Doyle, who has just published his first Sherlock Holmes story, to help him examine the scene of the crime. However, the body has vanished, the room has been cleaned, and the police seem uninterested in pursuing the case, so Wilde and Sherard begin their own investigation. Elegant dialogue and rich atmospheric details of Victorian England, plus a mesmerizing detective who can out-Sherlock Holmes himself! (APA: Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders)

C.S. Challinor
Christmas Is Murder (2008) introduces Rex Graves, a Scottish barrister, who plans to spend Christmas in Swanmere Manor in the English countryside. The manor, now an exclusive hotel, is owned by an old friend of Rex’s mother. Remembering many pleasant boyhood activities at the manor, Rex brings his sports equipment, but the manor is snowed in and he has to resort to turning his tennis rackets into temporary snowshoes to get from the station. He is greeted by the news that one of the elderly guests died the night before. Another guest suspects cyanide poisoning and convinces Rex to investigate since the police can't get to the manor until the snow melts. The following two days bring two more deaths. This traditional novel has all the classic elements—a closed set of suspects, a quick-witted amateur sleuth, a hint of romance—and would be the perfect choice for the Christie fan on your gift list.

Paul Charles
I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass (1997) introduces Christy Kennedy, the Irish-born Detective Inspector of Camden CID in North London, England. Kennedy’s girl friend ann rea, a journalist who has adopted the k.d. lang/ee cummings name spelling style, asks him to look into the disappearance of a record producer who eventually turns up dead. Rock promoter Charles knows the music industry inside out, and presents a convincing and complex picture of corrupt schemes and cutthroat deals. Musical quotes from a wide variety of artists introduce each chapter; the title is from a Nick Lowe song. Kennedy is a humane and likable protagonist, always on the search for his next cup of tea. A combination of police procedural and classic whodunit, this clever novel will appeal to traditional mystery fans, especially those who enjoy Lovesey’s Peter Diamond books.

James Church
A Corpse in the Koryo (2006) introduces Inspector O, a state police officer, in North Korea. After an odd assignment to photograph a car speeding through the mountains at dawn, Inspector O realizes he and his superior, Pak, have become involved in a power struggle between rival military and intelligence forces. In this closed society, everyone is spying on everyone else, selling information or buying it. O writes the shortest reports possible, knowing that details invite questions, but always “forgets” to wear his lapel portrait of the Leader. Though Inspector O searches for justice in an ever-shifting reality, cases are rarely solved in his world. In constant pursuit of an ever-elusive cup of tea, O worries chips of hardwood, smoothing the edges to get to the heart of the wood, and dreams of someday building a bookcase. This is an excellent first novel, beautifully written in an unique voice that brings an unfamiliar world to life.

Timothy Findley
The Telling of Lies (1986) is ostensibly a journal written by a jaded lady, Vanessa Van Horn, who is depressed by her upcoming 60th birthday. Since 1926, she has summered at a venerable resort hotel on the coast of Maine, along with socialites in her mother’s generation, who spend the season in their “cottages” and other resorts. Nessa’s life and outlook have been profoundly affected by her family’s incarceration by the Japanese in Java during WWII. The mysterious death of an aged pharmaceutical magnate on the beach one day provides for a major break in the routine of the rich, famous, and fading social set. Nessa, a skilled photographer, has accidentally taken some interesting pictures, which draw her into political intrigue. Findley’s style is episodic, with flashbacks and reflections on the modern condition and decline in the 20th century. This non-series book by the Canadian author won the 1989 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.

Michael Stanley
A Carrion Death (2008) introduces assistant superintendent David Bengu of the Botswana Police Department, known as Kubu (hippopotamus) for his bulk. When rangers find a body at a watering hole on a game reserve, there isn't much left of it. The scavengers have done their part, but the fact that all the teeth have been knocked out makes Kubu suspect someone was trying to hide the identity of the victim. As Kubu investigates, he keeps running across links to Botswana Cattle and Mining, the country’s largest diamond company. Kubu is a compelling protagonist; usually wondering when his next meal will appear, he loves singing along with the baritone part of his favorite operas. Clever and determined, he pursues the threads of his case with a single-minded passion that still leaves time for his wife and parents. Stanley (joint pseudonym of South Africans Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) creates a mesmerizing sense of place and an unforgettable protagonist.

Clarissa Watson
The Fourth Stage of Gainsborough Brown (1977) introduces Persis Willum, an artist and art gallery assistant in Long Island, New York. When Gainsborough Brown, an artist Persis represents, is found dead at a party thrown by her beloved Aunt Lydie, the inquisitive Persis is sure foul play is at work and is soon busily ferreting out clues. Persis is firmly entrenched in the New York art gallery scene, affectionate yet able to judge with an ironic eye, giving the reader an insider’s view. This cozy seems old-fashioned for the late 1970s, the characters comfortable in a much earlier decade—a perfect escape from the grim reality of the modern world.

James R. Benn
Billy Boyle (2006) begins the saga of Billy’s army career in World War II. A distant cousin of General Eisenhower, the reluctant soldier Billy is assigned to investigate a potential spy in Operation Juniper, intended to take back Norway from the German invaders. The Norwegian government in exile, including King Haakan play their roles, along with Polish ex-patriots and an enchanting female English driver. There is a bit of the English country house feel to the mystery, but one of the major strengths is the author's detailed knowledge of WWII history. There are a few too many gee-whiz references to oddities like the English driving on the wrong side of the road and calling elevators “lifts,” but the plot and interesting detail overcome the weaknesses to make this a promising debut of what is now a three-book series.

Jeffrey Cohen
Some Like It Hot-Buttered (2007) introduces Elliot Freed, a recently divorced writer who has just re-opened an old movie theater in New Jersey. Elliot shows nightly double features at Comedy Tonight: a classic comedy followed by a new one. When a patron is killed with a box of poisoned popcorn during Young Frankenstein, and the young projectionist/film student disappears, Elliot decides to help investigate. The characters are unique and presented with sympathetic humor. Elliot, who prefers wit over jokes, is continually working on his snappy comebacks, and Sophie the snack/ticket girl tries to be Goth but can't quite pull it off. Loaded with classic movie references, this clever and funny book is a winner.

Chris Ewan
The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam (2007) introduces Charlie Howard, a professional thief who writes a mystery series about a professional thief. While in Amsterdam trying to wrap up the loose ends of his latest mystery (he can’t figure out how to get a briefcase containing a severed hand to the right place), Charlie is hired by a mysterious American to steal two small monkey figurines. Then the American is killed, and Charlie is a suspect. This light-hearted caper novel is full of classic elements: a beautiful girl in distress, menacing thugs, stolen diamonds, and a group unveiling of the solution to the mystery.

Kathryn Lilley
Dying to Be Thin (2007) introduces Kate Gallagher, a TV producer who would like to move in front of the camera. Kate has been told she has the face for TV, but a bit too much body, so she checks into the exclusive Hoffman Clinic, in Durham, North Carolina, Diet Capital of the World. Armed with The Little Book of Fat Busters, a collection of tips from her friend Mimi, Kate is determined to lose enough weight to fit comfortably again into her tiny vintage sportscar. She finds work with the local TV station covering her own weight loss, but soon finds herself investigating the sudden death of the director of the clinic. This humorous traditional mystery is fast-paced and great fun.

Priscilla Royal
Wine of Violence (2004) introduces Eleanor of Wynethorpe, who is appointed Prioress of Tyndal in East Anglia, England, as a political favor to her father despite her youth and inexperience. It is summer of 1270, and the monks and nuns of the Order of Fontevraud are not thriving as they should. Revenues are down and the garden is not producing enough to last through the coming winter. Eleanor is faced with the challenge of gaining the trust of both the nuns, whose own choice of prioress was rejected, and the monks, who have grown accustomed to the virtual rule of one of their own during the tenure of the last prioress. A brutally murdered monk in the cloister gardens trumps all other problems and Eleanor finds herself investigating a murder. While remaining strongly rooted in history, this mystery explores themes of love, lust, envy, and ambition.

Fred Vargas
Seeking Whom He May Devour (French 1999, English 2004) is set in the French Alps. The villagers at first believe a rogue wolf is responsible for some sheep savagings, but when a woman is killed in the same manner, rumors of a werewolf begin to circulate. Soliman, the woman’s young adopted son, Watchee, her ancient head shepherd, and Camille, a young musician recruited to drive the sheep lorry, head out in pursuit of a loner who disappears immediately after the murder. When the trio realize they are in over their heads, Camille contacts her old friend Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg for assistance. The solution of the mystery is clever and unexpected, but the true charm of this book is the eccentric road trip which brings together four vivid and unique personalities: Soliman creates fables to explain reality, Camille reads “The A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft” for relaxation, Watchee lives and breathes sheep, and Adamsberg floats in a cloud of intuition, waiting for the facts to settle into an understandable pattern.

Ann Cleeves
Raven Black (2006) is set in the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland. When the murdered body of a high school girl is found on a snowy hillside, the village and the police immediately suspect Magnus Tait, a mentally challenged old man who lives alone with a caged raven. The last to see the murdered girl, Marcus was also the prime suspect in the disappearance of another young girl eight years before. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez isn’t convinced that Magnus is guilty and begins to unravel a web of deceit and lies. Told from various viewpoints, the cast of characters comes vividly to life. This atmospheric thriller won the 2006 Gold Dagger (Duncan Lawrie) Award and is the first in a planned quartet.

Carolyn Hart
Death on Demand (1987) introduces Annie Laurance, who has just inherited her uncle’s mystery book store, Death on Demand, in Broward’s Rock, South Carolina. During an evening gathering of local mystery writers, the lights suddenly go out and author Elliot Morgan is murdered in classic locked room style. Not only did the murder take place in a closed shop, the island itself is closed to outsiders except through two monitored access points. Luckily Annie’s boyfriend, Max Darling, has come to visit and help her investigate since Annie is the prime suspect. Written from the perspective of a mystery reader, this novel is full of allusions to classic mystery writers and their characters, and had me scribbling notes about other authors to investigate.

John Harvey
Lonely Hearts (1989) introduces Charlie Resnick, a divorced, untidy, middle-aged police detective in Nottingham, England. Resnick is a protagonist we want to spend time with—compassionate and intuitive, he loves food, American jazz, his cats, and his job. The murder of first one and then a second lonely woman leads Resnick to a killer who stalks his victims through the Lonely Hearts column. The compelling supporting cast of cops, criminals, and social workers gives this complex police procedural depth and heart.

Declan Hughes
In The Wrong Kind of Blood (2006) Ed Loy returns to his hometown of Dublin, Ireland for his mother's funeral. Loy left home over 20 years ago, following the disappearance of his father, finally ending up in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator. At the funeral, an old friend asks Loy to find her missing husband, and he discovers another old friend brandishing a gun in this mother’s garden. Loy soon finds himself tangled in a web of extortion, drugs, and murder, orchestrated by the notorious Halligan brothers. The present is connected to the past in unexpected ways, and Loy’s own personal demons are finally laid to rest as he slowly unravels the mystery. Hughes’s distinctive voice shines in this moving thriller.

Carlo Lucarelli
Carte Blanche (Italian 1990, English 2006) introduces Commissario De Luca in the final days of Mussolini’s Italy. Public order teeters on the brink of collapse, while various police and military units, as well as partisan and German Gestapo forces, struggle for power. The criss-cross of authority, miscommunication, manipulation, and anarchy in the face of the Allied advance from the south, are almost farcical, were the subject not so grim. De Luca is determined to do proper police work to find the murderer of Vittorio, a Fascist playboy and drug dealer, notwithstanding chaos, danger, and death at every corner. This novella (108 pp.) weaves the police procedural elements with the historical reality, and tumbles toward an ambiguous conclusion, sometimes leaving the reader breathless. The remaining books in the trilogy are now in print in English.

Ona Russell
O’Brien's Desk (2004) introduces Sarah Kaufman who handles probate and family law matters for Judge O'Brien O’Donnell, “Obee” to his friends, in 1920s Toledo, Ohio. This historical mystery, based on actual events and characters, presents more history than mystery, but the writing maintains a high interest level nevertheless. Judge O'Donnell, a crusader for social improvements and active in local politics, faces a serious blackmail threat resulting in a mental breakdown. Sarah, a Jewish “spinster,” faces issues of anti-semitism and sexism typical of the time and place, while struggling to help (or save from himself) her friend, boss, and mentor. The book includes fascinating montages of newspaper clippings that inspired the book. The characters are well-developed and the historical-political descriptions are more interesting and significant to a general audience than Toledo, Ohio, might at first suggest.

Linda Barnes
A Trouble of Fools (1987) introduces Carlotta Carlyle, an ex-cop and now fledging private investigator, in Boston, Massachusetts. An elderly Irish woman hires Carlotta to find her missing brother, who drives a cab at the taxi company Carlotta used to work for. When the woman is attacked and her house searched, Carlotta finds a pile of money and begins to suspect the missing brother and his cabbie friends are involved with the IRA so the six-foot red-haired detective goes undercover as a cab driver. Carlotta’s wit and humanity sparkle throughout, whether she is on the case, trying to figure an angle for collecting the prize her cat Thomas C. Carlyle has won, or protecting her “little sister” Paolina from the drug dealer who has set up shop near her school.

Lawrence Block
The Girl With the Long Green Heart (1965) is the story of a long-term con. Evvie Stone is millionaire Wallace J. Gunderman’s secretary and mistress. When Gunderman’s wife finally dies and he refuses to make good on his promise to marry her, Evvie connects with Doug Rance and John Hayden, experienced con-artists. Doug's charm is balanced by John's sincerity, making them the perfect team to help Evvie get her revenge along with a pile of money. Written from John's point of view, the con starts slowly and then begins to snowball toward the unexpected conclusion. Block is a mesmerizing storyteller and this book is a real page-turner.

Rosemary Harris
Pushing Up Daisies (2008) introduces Paula Holliday, who has left her documentary filmmaking job in New York City for a quieter life in Springfield, Connecticut. To jumpstart her new gardening business, Paula talks her way into the job of renovating the gardens at an estate just willed to the historical society. Digging for soil samples the first day on the job, Paula uncovers the body of a baby that has clearly been buried for some time. When her friend and employee is arrested for the crime, Paula begins her own investigation into the past where she is sure the motive lies. Soon she is juggling a growing attraction for the local detective and a sexy Mexican laborer on top of garden chores. Gardeners will enjoy this fast-paced mystery full of garden lore.

Julie Hyzy
State of the Onion (2008) introduces Olivia (Ollie) Paras, White House assistant chef in Washington DC. Henry, the top-chef, is about to retire, and Ollie is competing for the job against a self-absorbed TV celebrity chef. The president is negotiating a major peace plan in the Middle East, and the White House kitchen has to plan an elaborate state dinner in half the usual time. When Ollie stuns an intruder on the White House grounds with the gift she is bringing to Henry—an engraved skillet—things really start to fall apart. Ollie is a compelling narrator, and the insights into life in the White House kitchen are fascinating in this fast-paced light thriller. The appendix at the end is an added bonus with recipes and tidbits. Did you know FDR insisted on serving hot dogs to the King of England?

C.J. Sansom
Dissolution (2003) introduces Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer in Tudor England. It’s 1537, and Shardlake has been sent to the Benedictine monastery at Scarnsea, Sussex, by Lord Cromwell to investigate the murder of a king's commissioner. Using reports from the monastery inspection two years early, Cromwell hoped the commissioner could convince the abbott to voluntarily dissolve the monastery. Shardlake soon discovers evidence of sexual misconduct, embezzlement, and treason. Sansom brings the Reformation to life with plenty of atmosphere and a clever plot. Shardlake is a hunchback, but his brilliant intellect more than compensate for his physical limitations. He is compassionate and committed to the ideals of Cromwell’s reforms, but is growing increasingly wary of the motives of his fellow reformers as the book progresses.

James Swain
Midnight Rambler (2007) is the story of an ex-cop whose career was destroyed by his violence against a serial killer who used a Rolling Stones song while torturing his victims. Jack ran the Missing Persons Division in Broward County Florida before leaving the force, and continues privately in that field while still trying to figure out what Simon Skell, the Midnight Rambler, did with the bodies of his victims. Then the body of one of the victims is discovered, and forensic evidence suggests that the wrong man may have been jailed. With his faithful dog, Buster, at his side, Jack races against the clock to gather new evidence to keep Skell behind bars. This thriller leaves much of the violence off-stage while keeping all of the tension front and center. Jack is a sympathetic protagonist, empathetic yet tough, and unlike most ex-cops in crime fiction, Jack does not struggle with alcohol addiction!

Mike Doogan
Lost Angel (2006) introduces Nik Kane, a 55-year old ex-cop and soon to be ex-husband, in Anchorage, Alaska. Nik has just been released from prison after serving all but three months of a 7-year prison term resulting from a false conviction. Nik finds readjusting to the outside world difficult, and when asked by his former boss to look for a missing woman from a Christian community in the icy interior, Nik agrees to help. As the case grows more complex, Nik discovers that reviving his dormant investigative skills may be the key to reawakening his interest in life. An engaging detective and fascinating setting combine to make this book something special.

Maria Hudgins
Death of an Obnoxious Tourist (2006) introduces Dotsy Lamb, a recently divorced empty nester from Virginia, traveling with her friend Lettie in Italy. The tour group includes a very annoying woman who manages to alienate everyone in the group, including her two sisters, by the second day. When she is murdered in Florence, Dotsy and Lettie decide to help find the killer. They form a perfect amateur team: Dotsy is logical and persistent while the scatterbrained Lettie has a near photographic memory. The suspect list quickly narrows down to the eclectic tour group. which includes a Canadian dairy farmer who carries pictures of his favorite cows and an Englishman who speaks in incomprehensible bursts. Traditional mystery fans will enjoy this humorous book.

Martin Limón
Jade Lady Burning (1994) introduces George Sueno and Ernie Bascom of the Eighth Army Criminal Investigations Division in 1960s Seoul, South Korea. Seoul is full of American GIs with too much money and Korean “business girls” trying to make a living. When Miss Pak is brutally murdered, George and Ernie are assigned to investigate since and American GI had submitted marriage papers for her. The Army wants a quick solution to kill the bad press, George and Ernie want to return to their usual life of hanging around the bars, but the Korean cops and underworld are taking an interest. George has a fondness for business girls and decides to actually solve a case for a change. The desperate reality of Korean women struggling to survive is presented with compassion.

Pat McIntosh
The Harper’s Quine (2004), introduces Gil Cunningham in 15th century Glasgow, Scotland, who stumbles over the murdered body of a woman. Gil is trained as a lawyer, and is expected to enter the priesthood since he has no other means of support. Gil is asked to investigate and he soon identifies the corpse as a noblewoman who has left her husband to become the harper’s mistress. Assisted by the French master mason who is constructing a building where the body was found, Gil examines forensic clues while also using his intuition. The mason’s lively daughter decides to help solve the puzzle, and Gil finds himself wondering if there are alternatives to the priesthood. The realism of the historical setting is impressive and the characters true to life. Medieval mystery fans will love this series.

Ian Sansom
The Case of the Missing Books (2006) introduces Israel Armstrong, a Jewish vegetarian from London, who is hired as head librarian by the village of Tumdrum, Northern Ireland. When Ian arrives in the small damp village he discovers that the library has been closed and that his accommodations are a drafty chicken coop complete with resident chickens. The council provides him with an ancient mobile library—an empty bus with no shelves or books. Ian's hilarious struggles to comprehend the local variety of English and avoid eating pork products while navigating the unnamed maze of back roads in search of the missing 15,000 library books make this traditional mystery a fun read.

Sally Wright
Publish and Perish (1997) introduces Ben Reese, a 1960s archivist at a small private college in Ohio. When Richard West, head of the English department, dies of heart failure immediately after telling Ben on the phone that he has discovered an act of treachery, Ben wonders if there has been foul play. A former intelligence agent and commando in World War II, and a friend of the local chief of police, Ben soon finds himself actively involved in the murder investigation. The characters and the insights into campus life carry this traditional mystery.

Sarah Atwell
Through a Glass, Deadly (2008) introduces Emmeline (Em) Dowell, an artist with a weakness for strays, which is why she has two short-legged dogs that have to be carried up and down the stairs of the apartment above her glassblowing studio and shop in Tucson, Arizona. When the hesitant Allison McBride expresses interest in learning about glass, Em offers her a part-time job and her spare bedroom. That night Allison’s husband is murdered in the studio and Em finds herself chasing down clues to prove her new friend's innocence. Em is funny and unpretentious—the recipe included in the back of the book is for her specialty: Mac & Cheese with Hotdogs. This light mystery will appeal to those interested in crafts; the glassblowing techniques are fascinating, and each chapter begins with a glass vocabulary definition

Ken Bruen
The Guards (2001) introduces Jack Taylor, recently dismissed from the Garda Siochana (Irish police) for drinking, now “finding things” for people in Galway, Ireland, since “private eye” sounds too much like “informer” to the Irish. Hired by a woman who is sure her daughter did not commit suicide, Jack battles the garda and the drink to find the truth. A complex mix of violence, wit, despair, determination, and compassion, Jack Taylor is a compelling and unforgettable character. Bruen’s writing is literate and lyrical throughout: this novel won the 2004 Shamus Award and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Macavity.

Steve Hamilton
A Cold Day in Paradise (1998) introduces Alex McKnight, a former Detroit cop now running a hunting camp built by his late father, in Paradise, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Superior. Still wrestling with the aftereffects of a shooting that killed his partner and left a bullet next to his heart, Alex is reluctantly drawn into protecting a local millionaire. The past events are skillfully woven into the fast pace of the present as Alex becomes convinced that the man who shot him 14 years ago is behind the current murders even though he is still behind maximum security bars. As the clever plot twists and turns, Alex faces his own demons. Though it reads like a stand-alone, there are six more in the series. An amazing debut novel, this book was awarded the 1999 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Petra Hammesfahr
The Sinner (1999) [English 2007], the German author’s English debut, is a highly competent and engaging psychological exploration and police procedural. Cora Bender, a young mother who stabs an apparent stranger to death at the beach, has a loose grip on reality, or perhaps a firm grip on many shifting realities, providing a major challenge to Grovian, the police commissioner who persists in following all the threads. Cora has major family issues, involving her religiously fanatic mother, strange father, and frail sister, and the way the book progresses by gradually peeling off layers to expose new truths is fascinating. The author effectively shifts first-person perspectives and third-person description. We hope there will be more Hammesfahr translations.

Leonardo Padura
Havana Blue (1991) [English 2007], is the first of the Cuban author’s Four Seasons Quartet set in Havana in 1989—called the Havana Quartet in the English edition. Police lieutenant Mario Conde, known as the Count, investigates the disappearance of an up-and-coming government trade official, who also happens to be an old classmate, married to Tamara, a girl Conde and his friends fantasized about back in high school. The rich characterizations and bittersweet remembrances of old times 20 years ago play as great a role in the book as the investigation. Havana and Cuban politics are effectively woven into the story, as part of the atmosphere. Conde is a bit of a loner, with a goldfish named Rufino, and who hums “Strawberry Fields Forever” when he needs a lift out of depression. The second book in the series, Havana Gold (1994), has just been published in English, to complete the Quartet.

Linda Palmer
Love Is Murder (2004) introduces Morgan Tyler, a 30-year-old widow and the head writer of the daytime drama “Love of My Life” in New York City. Morgan continually creates scenes in her head, both for the characters on her show and for her own life. When Morgan’s boss, the VP of Daytime Programming, is murdered, real life becomes as compelling as fiction. Morgan manages to stumble over a body or two, and her unusual expertise about guns and wills, research for past stories in her show, promote her to prime suspect status. So Morgan decides to solve the crime by doing what a soap opera writer does best—examining the story lines of everyone involved until the logical motive emerges. This traditional mystery is witty and fun.

Megan Abbott
Queenpin (2007) is the story of a young woman working as a bookkeeper at a small-time nightclub. Gloria Denton, an infamous and glamorous mob-insider, takes our unnamed narrator on as a protégée, her assistant in an intoxicating world of late-night casinos, race tracks, and betting parlors in a unspecified time and place that feels like the 40s. The relationships in this noir tale are complex and compelling, the action swift, the spiraling climax inevitable yet fresh. This hard-boiled stunner won the 2008 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.

Lawrence Block
Hit Man (1998) a series of linked short stories, introduces John Paul Keller, a hit-man based in New York City. As he works on his various assignments, Keller’s active imagination searches for a place for himself in the new environment: he could buy a house and settle in a small town; he could be the cowboy who rides into town to dispense justice. Considering his occupation, Keller is an amazingly sympathetic character. Keller is a mass of contradictions: a compassionate killer, a loner craving companionship. Keller’s wry ironic narration makes the reader care about this criminal. Hit and Run, the fourth book in the Keller series, is due this month.

Adrian Hyland
Moonlight Downs (2008) is an amazing debut novel, the story of Emily Tempest, a feisty half-white half-aboriginal 26-year old, returning to the Outback blackfeller camp of Moonlight Downs after 14 years in the whitefeller world. Just after she arrives, the respected community leader is murdered in a manner implicating the local sorcerer. Ambivalent about her place in the world, and her relationship with Hazel, the daughter of the murdered man and her best friend from the past, Emily begins searching for answers about the murder, her community, and herself. Rich in details of Australian life and culture, this beautifully written book is a gem. First published in Australia as Diamond Dove (2006), this book won the 2007 Ned Kelly Award for best first novel.

Susan McBride
Blue Blood (2004) introduces Andrea “Andy” Kendricks, a 30-something webmaster who chose art school in Chicago over her debutante ball. Andrea has returned to Dallas, Texas, and mother Cissy still has hopes of marrying her daughter off to someone in the right social strata. Andy prefers her independence, but calls on her mother for help when her old friend Molly O’Brien is arrested for murdering her sleazy boss. To her mother’s dismay, Andy goes undercover at “Jugs” in hot pants, padded jog bra, and big hair to search for evidence to clear Molly. This novel earned the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery of 2004 and a nomination for the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original.

R.T. Raichev
The Hunt for Sonya Dufrette (2006) begins with the disappearance and presumed drowning of a small girl during a house party on the day of the royal wedding in 1981. Twenty years later, Antonia Darcy, now a grandmother, librarian at the Military and Naval Club in London, and aspiring mystery writer, finds the detailed account she wrote at the time. Convinced that something was missed during the long-ago investigation, Antonia, assisted by her new admirer Major Hugh Payne, returns to the country house to search for clues. This solid traditional mystery features an engaging protagonist, a supporting cast of wonderfully eccentric characters, and an intriguing trail of clues and red herrings.

David Rosenfelt
Open and Shut (2002) introduces Andy Carpenter, an irreverent defense attorney in Paterson, New Jersey who will do just about anything to win a case. Andy has a girlfriend, an almost-ex-wife, and a golden retriever he adores. When his father, a legendary ex-D.A. dies unexpectedly, he leaves Andy an unexpected fortune and an un-winnable case. Bits of the past and the present collide with unpredictable results that change the nature of the case and Andy himself. Luckily his sense of the absurd and biting wit are untouched.

Gordon Campbell
Missing Witness (2007) tells the story of Doug McKenzie who returns in 1973 to his home town of Phoenix, Arizona to work with legendary defense lawyer Dan Morgan. The case seems clear: a rich rancher’s son has been shot by either his beautiful wife, Rita, or emotionally disturbed 12-year old daughter, Miranda. When Miranda slips into a catatonic state, the murdered man’s father hires Morgan to defend his daughter-in-law. Nominated for the Edgar for Best First Novel, this powerful courtroom drama has a twisty plot and finely drawn portraits of two very different lawyers.

Tana French
In the Woods (2007) is narrated by Dublin detective Rob Ryan, whose two childhood friends disappeared in the woods 20 years earlier. Only his partner, Cassie Maddox, knows that Ryan was the third child, found with no memory of the event. When Ryan and Maddox begin to investigate the murder of a 12-year-old girl whose body is found at a local archeological dig near the same woods, the past and present collide. Ryan knows he should remove himself from the investigation, but the chilling similarities between the two cases give him hope of laying old ghosts to rest. Ryan and Maddox are complex and empathetic characters, and their relationship gives this police procedural thriller unexpected emotional depth. This impressive debut novel is a finalist for the 2008 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Jonathan Lethem
Motherless Brooklyn (1999) narrates the exploits of Lionel Essrog and a crew of high-school dropout orphans, who are borrowed from an orphanage to do some heavy lifting of a dubious nature for Frank Minna. The group graduates into the “Minna Men” operating a private limo service and detective agency in Brooklyn. The kicker in all this is that Lionel is an intelligent and heartwarming sufferer of Tourette’s Syndrome, although Lionel accepts and even glories in his condition. The 2000 Gold Dagger winner takes on Lionel’s personal rhythm of wordplay, outbursts, tics, and physical exhibitions, integrating with a complex story of murder, cults, and mafiosi. One of the most amazing and rewarding books we’ve recently read.

Craig McDonald
Head Games (2007) tells the story of Hector Lassiter (aging crime writer), Bud Fiske (a young poet sent by True Magazine in 1957 to interview Lassiter), and the stolen head of Mexican general Pancho Villa. Lassiter embodies the pulp fiction he writes, tearing through the desert from Mexico to LA with a trunkful of heads while fighting off Mexican nationalists as well as creepy members of Yale University’s Skull & Bones Fraternity with his trusty 1873 Colt Pacemaker. Full of history and legends, this fun wild ride of a first novel is nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

Deanna Raybourn
Silent in the Grave (2007) introduces Lady Julia Grey, whose husband Edmond dies suddenly of heart disease at a dinner party in their London townhouse. Over her husband’s body, Julia meets Nicholas Brisbane, a mysterious private detective who suspects murder since he is working for Edmond to find the source of threatening letters. In 1880s London, England, it’s not easy to be a widow, especially in the first year of deep mourning, and it is over a year before Julia finds an indication that Brisbane might be right. A pitch-perfect historical, this is an impressive first novel with an interesting heroine, a disturbing but attractive detective, and a slightly eccentric cast of supporting characters. The themes are dark for a traditional mystery, but Julia’s sprightly narration and optimism provide the balance to earn a nomination for an Agatha Best First Mystery.

Hank Phillippi Ryan
Prime Time (2007) introduces Charlotte “Charlie” McNally, a TV investigative reporter, in Boston, Massachusetts. At age 46, workaholic Charlie, whose strongest relationship seems to be with her Emmy Award, worries that her news director is about to replace her with a younger model. Charlie is sent to interview the wife of a man killed in an auto accident and learns that the dead man recently emailed her about some mysterious papers. While searching through her SPAM, Charlie finds some intriguing messages that she hopes will result in a block buster news story just in time for Sweeps Week. Charlie meets the first man who has interested her in ages, but her instinct to investigate everything cause her to suspect he may not be one of the good guys. This debut novel won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Kevin Wignall
Who Is Conrad Hirst? (2007) is the story of a hit man who decides to retire. Knowing that a retired hit man is a liability to the organization, Conrad decides to kill the four men who know who he is and what he does. He is slightly worried when the first victim tells him that everything he has been told is a lie. When the face of the German crime boss he believes he has been working for does not match the face of the man who hired him, Conrad realizes he has no idea how to extricate himself from the situation. Conrad kills with no emotion, yet somehow becomes a sympathetic character as he tries to unravel his present and past. (Nominee for 2008 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original)

Eric Garcia
Anonymous Rex (1999) introduces an unexpected PI, an undercover Velociraptor, but then all the 14 surviving dinosaur species are undercover in the human world. Vinny Rubio thus has a double challenge, as a standard hard-boiled PI in Los Angeles, who also has to tread the dino-humie line. Oddly enough, the book is so convincing, that the reader finds the challenges and interactions convincingly natural, and the story of bosses and gangsters and lowlifes and dames, etc., proceeds in nearly traditional noir fashion. A weird excursion in some standard cliched situations, but freshly interpreted.

Michael Innes
Hamlet, Revenge! (1937) is the second in the Inspector Appleby series, but the first we could find, and it is just as well, with 31 suspects in an amazingly complex, erudite, academic country house murder mystery by a master, an originator of the “donnish” investigation. Inspector Appleby doesn’t arrive until page 75, but the academic lectures on Shakespeare's Hamlet keep the reader busy. In the end, the struggles are worth it, and Innes provides a towering literary mystery, rewarding the time it takes to analyze the professorial sentences. This, and presumably its series fellows, provide a depth of comfort that the language and literature has been well-served.

Peter Lovesey
The Circle (2005) tells the story of Bob Naylor, a van driver who enjoys playing with rhymes. Prodded by his daughter to get out more, Bob attends a meeting of the Chichester Writers’ Circle where the chair is taken by the police in suspicion of the arson that killed his disreputable publisher. Bob is pressured by the women in the group to help clear the chair's name, and after a second death the entire group is added to the list of suspects. Henrietta “Hen” Mallin, a police inspector on loan from West Sussex eventually arrives to take over the case, but it is the amateurs who stumble over most of the clues. Bob’s rhymes add a playful touch to this book sure to please fans of traditional mysteries. (The 2nd Hen Mallin book, The Headhunters, comes out this month.)

Claire Matturo
Skinny-Dipping (2004) introduces Lilly Belle Rose Cleary, a junior partner in a prestigious law firm in Sarasota, Florida. Lilly, a vegetarian who frets that her fruit might be treated with pesticides or germ-laden, is just finishing a kayak whiplash case when two medical malpractice suits get dumped on her desk. Obsessive-compulsive by nature, Lilly notices that the neatly aligned paper clips on the files in her office are no longer parallel—someone has been rummaging through her papers. Then one of her clients is murdered, Lilly is attacked, and the investigation is off and running. Lilly is a wonderful narrator—funny, witty, and smart as a whip.

Asa Nonami
The Hunter (1996) is the first English translation in the Takako Otomichi series, following police procedural detail, as well as Japanese proto-feminist internal dialog, as homicide detective and also elite motorcycle cop Takako works in the rigid old boys’ police network to solve a bizarre immolation murder. This is one that operates not-so-subtly on several levels, and is rewarding in terms of cultural factors, gender politics in modern Japan, and, not the least, a tight murder story, notwithstanding a bit of extraneous wolf-stuff. One of the best Japanese mysteries to arrive in English, in a wonderfully accessible translation.

Rick Riordan
Big Red Tequila (1996) introduces Jackson “Tres” Navarre, who left San Antonio, Texas, after he witnessed the murder of his sheriff father. Ten years later, responding to letters from his high school sweetheart, Tres returns to San Antonio armed with a PhD in English, a mastery of Tai Chi, investigative skills learned working for a San Francisco law firm, and an enchilada-eating cat. Tres decides to tackle the unsolved homicide of his father, but then his old girlfriend disappears, and things quickly move from bad to worse. Lively narration, vivid characters, snappy dialog, and a wry sense of humor make this book a winner.