Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Reviews

Two couples, the Brauns and the Liégeans, live near each other outside Geneva, Switzerland.  When Wild Animal opens, the four are casual friends, with  children of the same age; by the end of the novel, their lives are intertwined in ways not one of them could have imagined.

Sophie and Arpad Braun are living a luxurious life, fueled by their salaries as a successful attorney and an international banker plus generous gifts from Sophie’s father.  They live in what they call the Glass House with their two children, secluded in the woods, where they feel totally secure and free to indulge in any behaviors they desire without nearby neighbors peering in.  But unknown to them, someone is watching.

Greg and Katrine Liégeans live in a decidedly more modest home.  Greg is a police officer, a member of the city’s SWAT team, and Katrine is a clerk in a clothing store.  They also have two children, which is how the two mothers met.  The Liégeans’ lives are going smoothly until the night of Arpad’s 40th birthday party, when Greg sees Sophie up close for the first time and becomes obsessed with her.

It starts with Greg taking their dog for a walk through the woods to the Brauns’ house every morning, then finding a spot where he can look into their bedroom window, and it escalates to the point where he puts a stolen surveillance camera into the room to see Sophie in greater detail.  He simply can’t stop himself.

And who is the man driving the gray Peugeot who is following Sophie?  And why?

Wild Animal is written in a non-linear style, with a robbery at the center of the novel.  The reader doesn’t know what will be robbed or by whom, and the writing is so clever that, at least for me, the thieves’ identities came as a complete surprise.

In addition, the novel is told in various voices, so we learn about the events from different perspectives.  Readers can never be certain what they’re reading is accurate or simply what that character wants them to believe, which adds to the suspense of this outstanding novel.

Joël Dicker is a Swiss author whose novels have been translated into over forty languages.  You can read more about him on various sites on the internet.

Former police officer Evander “Andy” Mills is hired by the Mattachine Society in 1950s San Francisco, a group of gays working to “pursue equality for the homophile movement” according to Myrtle Bolton, a member of the Society.  She wants Andy to find three of the group’s members who’ve gone missing.

Myrtle explains that there was a conference between the San Francisco and the Los Angeles members, the two having very different ideas about what the Mattachines should focus on.  Since that meeting ended, three participants in the San Francisco group haven’t been seen.  She explains that because of official persecution and the fear of prosecution, she has no way of contacting the three; she doesn’t even know if Edward, Hank, and Daphne are their real names.

Since she has no addresses or phone numbers for them, Andy insists on attending the Mattachine’s next meeting in hopes that one of the group knows more about the three missing members than Myrtle does.  The members use code words, secret names, and masks to hide their identities.  Andy understands their fears, but their secrecy will definitely make his job more difficult.

After meeting with the San Francisco group and getting nowhere, Andy reluctantly decides he has to go to Los Angeles to continue his investigation.  He’s hesitant to visit the City of Angels for two reasons.

First, he’s happy in his San Francisco home, where he lives and has his office over the Ruby, a gay club where his boyfriend works; Andy has found a definite sense of community and friendship there.  He has no desire to leave it, even for a day or two.

Second, Los Angeles is where he grew up and where his mother lives.  She and Andy are not quite estranged, but they haven’t seen each other in a couple of years.  It’s a six hour car ride from his home, certainly doable, but Andy has been happy to keep their interactions restricted to a few phone calls a year.  His mother doesn’t know about his sexual orientation, and he’d like to keep it that way.  But he heads for Los Angeles in spite of his misgivings.

Mrs. Mills is delighted to see her son.  She is a nurse at a psychiatric facility and wants Andy to see the clinic, proud of the work they’re doing.  But when Andy visits it he’s disturbed and shocked by what he finds, and he determines to deal with it while he continues his search for Hank, Edward, and Daphne.

Mirage City is the fourth book in the Andy Mills series.  It’s a fascinating and disturbing look into 1950s culture, in which homophobia is rampant even in supposedly “enlightened” communities.  Sadly, these feeling are still present today, which makes this series an important read.  Andy is a realistic and engaging protagonist, forced out of his former career as a San Francisco detective when he’s discovered in a gay bar, and thus readers will understand his desire to stay within the Ruby community where he feels safe and respected.

You can read more about Lev AC Rosen at this website.

Okay, here is my confession.  Too Old For This is a book about a woman who is a serial killer, with five or six (I kind of lost count) murders behind her when the novel opens.  And I was rooting for her throughout the book!

Lottie Jones is a woman in her mid-seventies, living a quiet life.  Her only pastime is going to her church twice a week, once for Thursday bingo games and once for Sunday services.  A more blameless life is hard to imagine.

But all this is threatened when she opens her door to Plum Dixon, a young woman who wants to do a documentary about Lottie, whom she believes was falsely accused of murders more than forty years earlier, and set the record straight.  That would be admirable except for the fact that Lottie was not falsely accused, and she has no desire to have her life reopened for public scrutiny.

The two women sit down at Lottie’s kitchen table and talk about the project that Plum has in mind, and while Plum is searching her phone for clips of her work to share with the older woman, Lottie stands behind her and hits her over the head with an umbrella.  It’s not the situation she wants but the one she has to deal with.  And so the murders continue.

It’s hard to put my finger on why I was rooting for Lottie.  Looking at it objectively, here is a woman who has no qualms about murder if it helps her keep her life private.  She has been using a false name for more than forty years with great success, and she sees no reason why that should change.  If only those pesky people–police investigators, Plum’s mother, Plum’s boyfriend, and others whom we meet–would leave Lottie alone to live the remainder of her life.

Lottie narrates Too Old For This, but she doesn’t make excuses for the murders she commits.  In her mind, she’s justified because all she wants is her privacy, and the people she kills just won’t let her be.  Can you condemn her for getting them out of the way?

Samantha Downing has written a spellbinding book, one that captivated me from the first chapter.  Her characters, good and not so good, make you understand their motivations.  Why can’t they leave Lottie alone?

Too Old For This is brilliantly written, with a main character whose moral compass is definitely skewed in the wrong direction.  But you can’t stop reading about her, or at least I couldn’t.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Owner and guide of SF Killer Crime Tours, Capri Sanzio knows the history of the city’s criminal past better than most.  From San Francisco’s Tenderloin District to its Barbary Coast, there have been murders, robberies, abductions, and more since the first settlement in 1776.  Capri is aware that the people on her tours enjoy the frisson of danger they get from hearing the details of such crimes, but when the danger hits closer to home, it’s a different story.

Lorraine, one of the women on the Barbary Coast tour, has made herself a bit of a nuisance, asking Capri numerous questions, but the tour guide is patient.  Suddenly Lorraine screams and points to a building on a side street.  “Someone’s attacking that woman.”

Capri calls the police on her cell phone, but when they arrive and enter the building they don’t find anyone in the apartment Lorraine has pointed to.  After giving Lorraine a stern warning about wasting police time, the officers leave, but Capri now has several questions she’s turning over in her mind.  Could Lorraine have seen a rehearsal for a play and misinterpreted it?  Was she on medication that had her imagining things?  Could she have created the entire incident to put herself in the spotlight?

Still bothered by the discrepancy between Lorraine’s story and the fact that the police found an empty apartment at the site of the alleged violence, Capri contacts Inspector Dan Petito, a friend and romantic interest, who promises he will look into the situation and let her know what he discovers the following day.  However, when Capri calls Lorraine to update her, the latter is bothered by the time lag.  She tells Capri, “God only knows what could happen to her by then.”

Upset by Lorraine’s response to her phone call, Capri decides to do some investigating on her own.  She starts with the landlady of the building where the alleged crime took place, and although the woman won’t let Capri into the apartment, she does tell Capri that the tenant, Leeya Styles, had a boyfriend.  Then Leeya’s body is found in a dumpster outside her art studio.

In addition to dealing with Leeya’s death, Capri is also facing a major problem revolving around her ex-husband and his finances.  While part of her would like Todd to figure out the solution to his problems on his own, his financial instability directly impacts on their daughter Morgan.  That makes it something Capri is forced to handle.

A Tour to Die For is the second in the Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mystery series.  As she did in the first novel, Michelle Chouinard gives readers an attractive, believable heroine with a fascinating backstory.  Capri, her ex-husband Todd, their daughter Morgan, and all the other characters are realistic and credible and make this book well worth reading.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

The Killing Stones is the first in what apparently will be a new series by Ann Cleeves.  It features Jimmy Perez, the Detective Inspector in her Shetland series, but adds his significant other, Willow, a detective and his supervisor.  This duo, in love with each other and with their new home on Westray, a small island belonging to Orkney, an archipelago off the coast of Scotland, makes a formidable pair.

Willow is returning home from a brief visit to Aberdeen when she gets a phone call from Jimmy.  His best friend and cousin, Archie Stout, has been murdered, and Jimmy finds his body.  Archie was a larger-than-life figure on the island, with both friends and enemies.  He’d been out visiting friends, his wife Vaila tells Jimmy, but when he didn’t come home after delivering wood to some neighbors, she became concerned and drove to the hotel where she thought he’d be, having a few drinks with friends.  But Archie wasn’t there, and soon the entire island is looking for him.

The murder weapon is one of a pair of Neolithic stones on display in the Westray Heritage Centre.  To Jimmy, this speaks of premeditation.  How did the killer get the stone?  Why use that stone when there were so many other accessible weapons available?  And now the other stone has disappeared.

There are certainly enough suspects on the island.  One is Rosalie Greeman, a newcomer to Westray, a recent widow with whom Archie was eager to begin an affair.  When Perez interviews her, she admits the attraction but is adamant that there had not been anything physical between them.  Then there are Tony and Barbara Johnson.  They had worked on a dig when they were teenagers and returned now to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their meeting.  Tony is quite well known to the British public thanks to his television appearances, but Willow finds him aloof and condescending when she interviews the couple.

Archie’s death left Vaila and his two teenaged sons, Iain and Lawrie, in charge of the family farm.  Iain is the intellectual son, happy at school and destined for university, while Lawrie, the older, is happy working on the farm.  But whether he can keep the farm afloat is another issue.

Then there’s a second murder.  The victim is George Riley, a teacher who has taught the children on the island for years, including Archie and his sons.  Jimmy has been trying to reach him since Archie’s murder, only to find out that he’s been off-island at a teachers’ conference.  They arrange to meet at the visitors’ centre, which had housed the two special stones, but when Jimmy arrives he can’t find George anywhere.

When he finally enters the centre’s burial chamber he finds George’s body.  It had been crammed into a small circular chamber, and the second Neolithic stone was near him, covered in blood and pieces of bone.

Ann Cleeves’ love of the Orkney islands is clear on every page of this novel.  Her descriptions of the various places on the islands are beautiful and vivid.  And her accounts of the people on the islands, with their strengths and quirks, make the book come alive.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

The real-life friendship of Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein is brilliantly brought to life in Paul Levine’s historical mystery Midnight Burning.

The year is 1937, the setting Hollywood, and the creeping horror of fascism is spreading over America.  Though their friendship might seem strange on the surface, the movie star/director and the physicist had both differences and similarities in their lives that help bring them together.

Both were born in Europe, Chaplin in England and Einstein in Germany, and both emigrated to the United States.  While Chaplin lived a childhood of poverty and deprivation, being sent to a workhouse on two occasions before he was nine, Einstein was recognized at an early age as a prodigy and received a doctorate in physics.  Chaplin was brought to America by a vaudeville company and became an entertainer; Einstein fled Europe to avoid Nazi persecution and became a professor at Princeton.  But it is their shared love of democracy and hatred of dictatorship that cements their friendship.

As war clouds hover over Europe, the strength of American fascists grows.  Hollywood movie studio executives are told to portray Germany in positive ways; otherwise, their films will be banned in Germany, Italy, and Spain.  Father Coughlin spews anti-Semitic rants to an audience of 30 million listeners each week.  Aviation pioneer and hero Charles Lindbergh urges the United States to keep out of European affairs, misleading his followers about the outsized influence of Jews in politics, and mulls the possibility of running for president with the backing of the Nazis.

A group of American Nazis, led by screenwriter William Dudley Pelley, hatches a plan to assassinate twenty three celebrities, Jews and Christians alike, who speak out against fascism.  To do this, his group called the Silver Shirts plots to break into an army warehouse and steal that number of machine guns, planning on using one weapon for each death.  But the talents of Chaplin, with his background as an acrobat, and Einstein, whose knowledge of theoretical physics is unsurpassed, combine to thwart them.

Midnight Burning is filled with the names of people who were known to everyone in this era, from movie stars (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Janet Gaynor) to Nazis or Nazi sympathizers (Joseph Goebbels and United States Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota).  And the scene in which the Hindenburg, a German airship, attempts to land in New Jersey brings the horror of that disaster through the commentary of journalist Herbert Morrison.  His comment of “Oh, the humanity,” expresses his shock at the 36 lives lost instantly in the explosion.

A helpful Afterward lists the figures, both historical and fictional, who appear in the book, some of whom may not be familiar to everyone.  So skillfully are the novel’s characters drawn that readers may be surprised to learn who was a “real” person and who was not; I know I was.

Paul Levine, perhaps best known for his Jake Lassiter legal series, has written what I hope is the first in a new series.  The characters of Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein deserve another outing.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Imagine yourself as a nine-year-old girl discovering that your father, a butcher by profession, is dismembering a corpse in the basement of your house.  And realizing that this isn’t the first time he’s done this.  What would you do?

This is Daisy Bellon’s story.  She’s the only child of a severely depressed mother and a father whom she has come to understand is a serial killer.  Now he demands that she “go fishing” with him, which she recognizes as a euphemism for disposing of the body of the woman he killed the previous night.  “You’re an accomplice, guilty as me,” he informs her, and she knows what he means.  She must never tell anyone their secret.

Then two things happen almost simultaneously.  The first is the appearance of Marina, the woman her father killed the night before.  Her ghost is not visible to anyone except Daisy, but the two are able to talk.  Marina tells the young girl that she would like to leave but can’t, and the two become bound together for years.

The second event is the collision between Daisy and Caleb Garcia, a boy three years older than she is.  They bump into each other, literally, in the livestock market in Hellene, Nebraska, Daisy’s favorite place, and the next day Caleb and his family move into the house next door to hers.  Theirs is a perfect friendship until the age difference between them becomes insurmountable.

Although Daisy cannot know it then, Marina and Caleb will prove to be the two most important people in her life.

One positive thing her father gave her was a respect for animals, particularly cows.  They live in pastures, graze on fresh grass, and upon their death they bring nourishment to people, he explains to Daisy.  That’s more that can be said for humans, “because we leave nothing behind.”  Perhaps that explains his disregard for human life.

The novel is told in alternating flashbacks.  It opens with Daisy deciding to return to her hometown after seventeen years of avoiding it, going back in time to her childhood, and jumping ahead to her adult life.  Her life is filled with difficulty, of which her father’s serial killings are only a part, but Daisy has incredible strength, even if she is not always able to recognize it in herself.

The Butcher and the Liar is a brilliant tour de force, telling Daisy’s story in such a way that you’re always rooting for her, even if/when she does the wrong or hurtful thing.  S. L. Woeppel takes what could be a simple horror story and makes it a compelling coming of age story instead, featuring realistic people who have to deal with their complicated lives as best they can.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

In July I wrote about the passing of Martin Cruz Smith, an author I have been reading for years.  In that Appreciation I noted that his last novel, the final one in the Arkady Renko series, was published just three days before Mr. Smith’s death.  Thus writing this blog is bittersweet.

Hotel Ukraine could have been taken out of today’s headlines.  It opens with the Russian bombing of Kyiv and a crowd of Russians demonstrating in Pushkinskaya Square.  Arkady is there because he knows his adopted son Zhenya will be part of the group protesting the beginning of the war or, as the Russians are insisting on calling it, the “special military operation.”  Calling it a war is forbidden.

The following day Arkady is called to police headquarters where he learns of the murder of Alexei Kazasky, a minister of defense.  He will be the lead investigator for the MVD, the Russian Police Force, and to his dismay but not to his surprise, he will be paired with the Russian Security Service in the person of Marina Makarova.  The two have a long history, starting with an investigation into Chechen organized crime, morphing into an intimate relationship, and ending on an unhappy note.  That is in the distant past, however, although Renko wonders what that means for their present partnership.

The investigation begins with Marina telling Arkady that they’ve arrested a suspect for the murder, a diplomat at the Ukranian Embassy; since Ukraine broke off diplomatic relations a few hours earlier, Yuri Blokhin no longer has immunity from arrest.  Marina interrogates Blokhin for hours without getting past his denials, but she’s determined to break him.

She tells Renko that she had three operatives following Blokhin the night before, but the detective is suspicious.  He tells Marina he wants to interrogate the operatives separately to be certain that he can give his supervisor the complete testimony, and Marina can’t think of a logical way to stop him.  When Renko questions the men, each one tells him a slightly different story with varying details–different car models are mentioned, different drinks itemized, their descriptions of how Blokhin looked at the end of the evening don’t match.  Marina has no option but to free him.

Receiving a copy of Kazasky’s itinerary for the days preceding his murder, the only item that stands out is a visit to the 1812 Judo Club, owned by Lev Volkov.  The club’s name is an obvious reference to the Russian victory over Napoleon in that year, a date that every Russian knows.  The club is, in reality, a private army run by Volkov, with a membership of several thousand.  The members receive high pay from the government as well as medals for Orders of Courage and Services to the Motherland.  The comrades are involved not only in countries that were former Soviet bloc members but in a number of African nations as well, namely Mali and the Central African Republic.

Lev Volkov is an influential man, and now Arkady has two powerful opponents to deal with as he attempts to discover the truth about Alexei Kazasky’s death.

Martin Cruz Smith’s final novel is a brilliant coda to the Arkady Renko story.  You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

A single woman in the early 1900s in New York City, Margot Baxter Harriman is the head of B&H Foods.  She inherited this position on the death of her father, and although she has been at the company her entire working life there are those who question her right as a woman to be its president.  Still, as the third generation of Harrimans involved in the food business, Margot has been educated in the field since childhood and is confident that she belongs at the head of the table.

When Margot enters the company’s building after hours to pick up a report the company’s accountant left for her, it’s totally silent.  Of course there’s no one here, she thinks, that’s why it’s so quiet, but it’s still unnerving when compared to the usual clamor of people and machines she’s accustomed to.  Taking her master key from her pocket, she slides it into the accountant’s office and only then realizes that the door was already unlocked.  Sitting at the desk with her head at a strange angle is Giana Gilroy, the highly respected assistant to Margot’s father before her retirement.  But now Mrs. Gilroy is dead, and a note addressed to Margot is in her hand.

Margot says nothing about the note to the police, who have ruled that Mrs. Gilroy died of natural causes.  The note is almost inexplicable to her, as it says that Mrs. Gilroy and the late Mr. Harriman were “involved in a situation” at the company and that people got sick, some dying.  Margot knows that there are food companies that use fillers and cheap additions to prolong the life of their products, even though these practices are unlawful under the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, but she never knew or even suspected B&H of such activities.  Could she have been so naive, so trusting of her father, when it now appears he may have been involved in illegal practices?

Determined to find the truth and not knowing whom to trust in the company, Margot hires the firm of Mancini & Associates to investigate if there is any truth to what is inferred in the note.  Margot and Rhett Mancini decide that the best way to look into the situation is to have someone join the company as a worker, and when Margot asks whom Rhett is thinking of, the latter replies, “Why, me of course.”

Their first joint venture is checking out Mrs. Gilroy’s home before her cousin, Letitia Jacobs, gets the house ready to be sold.  The two women enter the house and begin their search; the late homeowner’s bedroom yields a book with notations in code and a key that looks like one for a safe deposit box in a New York City bank.  They are interrupted by another intruder, and as Rhett reaches into her pocket for her brass knuckles, Margot heaves a ceramic pitcher across the room and the man falls to the floor.  Thus the partnership begins.

A Murderous Business is a winning combination of an exciting plot, realistic characters, queer romance, and a fascinating look into Manhattan in the early part of the 20th century.  Cathy Pegau has written what is subtitled “A Harriman & Mancini Mystery,” so this is obviously the first in the series.  I look forward with much anticipation to the second one.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

The saying “bad things come in threes” is coming true for Liam Hirsch.   Just a few months earlier Liam had everything he dreamed of–a loving wife, a successful business, good health.  Then it all fell apart.

First he discovers that his wife Celeste is unfaithful, having an affair with their contractor.  Then TransScend, the artificial intelligence company that he founded, has some strange budgetary problems.  Most frightening of all, he receives a diagnosis of ALS that explains the muscle twitches in his legs, shoulders, and tongue.

Liam is torn between telling his family about his disease or keeping the news to himself until he can decide what to do.  Living in Washington state, he has the option of the Death with Dignity Act, but he’s not quite ready for that.

Liam has found out about his wife’s affair by hiring private investigator Andrea DeWalt after becoming suspicious of Celeste’s behavior.  He loves his wife and recognizes that he probably has been paying more attention to TransScend than to his family, but the betrayal still hurts deeply.  And then there’s the emotional bond he’s experiencing with Andrea, something that’s growing deeper each time they meet.

Making a mockery of the bad things being limited to threes, Rudy Ziegler reenters Liam’s life.  Two brilliant students, Liam and Rudy were in graduate school together, working on joint projects and planning their futures.  Then Rudy accused Liam of stealing his ideas, culminating in multiple lawsuits, all of which Rudy lost.

Now Liam wants to try to reconcile with Rudy, not by admitting he may have used some of the latter’s ideas without giving him credit but by offering him a ten percent interest in TransScend, but Rudy laughs at that.  It’s fifty-one per cent or nothing, he tells Liam.  As Liam stalks out of Rudy’s condo, Rudy calls after him, perhaps noting the way Liam’s body is twitching,”don’t underestimate karma.”

The reader will find it painful following Liam as he navigates the treacherous paths of his failing marriage, the major problems within his company, his ever-weakening body, and his interactions with Rudy.  He is a sympathetic protagonist, overwhelmed by these issues and not knowing where to turn.

The problems he faces are ones we can all recognize.  The characters in The Deepest Fake are beautifully drawn, and their thoughts and feelings make them, in this AI inspired mystery, recognizably human.

Daniel Kalla is an emergency room physician and the author of fifteen books.  With The Deepest Fake, he has written an impressive thriller.  You can read more about him at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Readers will have to wait until nearly the end of the book to discover the meaning of the title, but that won’t be a problem since they won’t be able to put the novel down without finishing it.  The White Crow is an outstanding mystery, told in three distinct voices.

Philomena McCarthy is an officer in the London Metropolitan Police Department with a unique backstory.  Her father and his brothers are the notorious McCarthy Gang, the four men having a criminal history that goes back decades.  Despite this family past, and despite the efforts of those higher up in the Department to keep her off the force, Philomena is now in her fourth year as a police officer and is hoping to become a detective.

On patrol one night, she sees a small foot peeking out from some hedges and finds a young girl in muddy pajamas hiding there.  The child tells Philomena that her name is Daisy Kemp-Lowe and that she’s outside because she couldn’t wake her mother.

Disregarding the orders from headquarters, Philomena enters the girl’s house.  Further ignoring the instructions from her radio, she walks into the kitchen and sees a woman, whom she assumes is Daisy’s mother, sitting in a chair with a plastic bag over her head.  Her face is blue and her body cold.

At the same time, Detective Chief Inspector Brendan Keegan is investigating a related crime, although he’s not aware of the little girl Philomena found.  Responding to a security alarm, he discovers a man in a jewelry store tied up, his mouth taped and his wrists and ankles bound to a chair.  A bicycle chain is wrapped around his waist, securing what appears to be a tilt switch attached to a bomb.

When Keegan removes the tape from the man’s mouth, the victim gives his name as Russell Kemp-Lowe, which is the same last name as the girl Philomena discovered hiding outside her home.  He tells the detective that intruders entered his house, forcing him at gunpoint to come to his store, leaving his wife and young daughter at home, with the criminals promising that no harm would come to them if he cooperated.  It turns out that the bomb tied to him is a fake, but before the inspector can get any more information, Kemp-Lowe falls to the floor unconscious.

There are no family members available to take care of Daisy in the aftermath of her mother’s death and her father’s hospitalization.  Throwing a tantrum, the little girl refuses to go with the assigned social worker, and thus Philomena agrees to take her home until a more permanent arrangement is made.

The novel’s third narrator is Edward McCarthy, Philomena’s father.  Now calling himself a property developer, the gang leader has created the Hope Island development, a combination of residential and commercial towers he plans to build.  The concept sounds good on paper, but the combination of COVID and high interest rates has created a major problem for him.  Now his bank wants immediate repayment of his overdue loans or a majority interest in Hope Island; McCarthy doesn’t have the money the bank is demanding, nor does he wants the bank as a partner.

Michael Robotham ties all these disparate strands together with his usual excellent writing.  All the characters are realistic and believable, and the plot of The White Crow will keep readers turning the book’s pages as fast as they can.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Have you ever noticed how the same person can appear so different to various people?  You may have a friend whom you think is a terrific conversationalist, while others think that person monopolizes every interaction.  Or you may consider someone a gossip and busybody while another friend sees their comments as helpful and insightful.

After Katie Cole’s arrest for murder, five men who knew her give their perspectives of the young woman.  Interestingly and tellingly, each has a different nickname for the young woman, perhaps showing the reader how they view her.

Katie is working at March House, a members-only club in Mayfair.  Its owner, Lucien Wrightman, hosts parties there for some of the most influential men in London; women are not allowed on its sacred premises.  One evening Wrightman and three of his guests are murdered during a small gathering he’s hosting; Katie is the only waitress.

Tarun, who reluctantly becomes her barrister when she’s tried for murder, calls her Katherine.  That’s not surprising, as he didn’t know her before he was hired.  When a CCTV camera captures her leaving the club, then attempting to leave London at the Paddington station, she tells the arresting officers, “They deserved it.”  It’s no wonder that Tarun feels “only dread” about representing her.

John is her father, and he calls her “Kit-Kat,” and he believes with all his heart that she’s innocent of the murder charges.  Her mother, however, is not so sure.

Max, one of the journalists covering the sensational story, refers to her as “Killer Kate” in his own mind.  The story of the deaths of four prominent men is tailor-made to keep his articles on the front page.  Wrightman was “richer than God” and the owner of the March House; Dominic Ainsworth was an inept politician who somehow managed to be named to a prominent role at the Exchequer; Aleksandr Popov was a Russian billionaire with many, many suspect interests; and Harris Lowe was heir to a diamond fortune and a real estate magnate.

Gabriel was her classmate and calls her “K. C.”  He is shy, somewhat nerdy, not very popular, and when K. C. takes an interest in him and introduces him to an internet website called the Rabbit Hole, it changes the way he sees the world.

Conrad calls her “Wildcat” and views her as “a bomb going off in my life.”  Despite being engaged, he spends the night with her and starts living two lives, one with his fiancée and one with Wildcat.  He is wracked with guilt, wrecking his life, but he’s unable to stop.

We hear from “Katie,” as she calls herself, only in the novel’s first chapter and in the last.  Thus it’s up to the reader to decide which of the men comes closest to understanding her and what the last words of the book, which are a repeat of her damning words at the trial, really mean.

Nicci Cloke has written a fascinating mystery in which all the characters are beautifully and clearly written so that the reader is able to understand their motivations and relationships to Katie.  Each man views Katie through his own lens, and that lens, of course, depends on his own life and his relationship with her.

You can learn more about the author on various sites on the web.

It’s July 1992 in Northern Ireland, and The Troubles continue.  The Good Friday Agreement is six years away, and riots persist.

For Sean Duffy, a Detective Inspector in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, his job doesn’t hold quite the terror that it had previously.  He is now in the last stages of his career, working the minimum of six days a month to get his full benefits and pension until he retires in two years.  His girlfriend and their daughter are safely across the water in Scotland, and although he still checks under his BMW for a mercury tilt switch bomb before starting his car, he’s feeling good about his life.

He’s just a few hours away from boarding the ferry to Scotland when his chief inspector turns up at Sean’s house.  It appears that Sean is the only detective available at this late hour to investigate a car highjacking that turned into a murder earlier that evening.  Although he pretends reluctance, Duffy is actually not unhappy to have a murder to investigate after months of doing boring paperwork at his part-time job.

The victim of the carjacking was shot at close range by a double-barreled shotgun.  There’s no identification on the body, but it appears obvious that the man was well-to-do.  His neighbor tells Duffy that the stolen car is a gold Jaguar, the man’s jacket is a custom made one by a Dublin firm, and his wallet contains Irish pounds and French franc notes.  But there is no ID, no driver’s license, no credit cards.

A further search shows no record of a passport or driver’s license issued to anyone at the man’s address, but Duffy recognizes what he believes are two original Picassos hanging above the fireplace in the living room.  The next day he brings a friend of his, an expert forger, to the victim’s house.  His friend tells him that the aquatints are, in fact, the work of the famous artist and are worth about 10,000 pounds each.  Now it’s obvious to Sean that this is more than a simple carjacking gone wrong.

Who is this mysterious victim, and what was he doing in Northern Ireland?

Adrian’s McKinty’s Sean Duffy series is an outstanding one.  Sean is a fascinating, multi-faceted character, a Roman Catholic who is a detective in the Constabulary (a Protestant police force loyal to the Crown), a man who goes to poetry readings, and who is not afraid of administering tough physical punishment when he believes it is necessary.

The books all take place during the upheavals when the Unionists, predominantly Protestant, and the Nationalists, predominantly Catholic, waged battles to decide whether the six counties of Northern Ireland would remain as part of the British Empire or join the separate Republic of Ireland.  Each novel is beautifully written and heartbreaking as well.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

It’s Shiloah Roy’s seventeenth birthday, and her father is giving her the big party he wants her to have despite her wishes for something smaller for her friends only.  But a man in his position, Jesse Roy reasons, needs to show off not simply his only child but also his own incredible wealth.  Thus the party for more than a hundred guests, featuring fireworks and a catered dinner, is in full swing when a fireball, not part of the massive fireworks display Roy ordered, lands in the middle of his ranch.

The following morning Sheriff Porter Beck receives a visit from Special Agent Ed Maddox, Office of Special Investigations.  He won’t tell Beck why he’s come to the high desert plains of Nevada but insists that the sheriff come with him to the Double J Ranch, site of the mysterious fireball.  There Maddox interviews Jesse, who is looking for an answer to explain what happened the previous evening when a government aircraft landed on and killed his most expensive steer.  Maddox isn’t able to explain exactly how the aircraft came to destroy the bull, but he doesn’t balk at agreeing to reimburse Jesse $100,000 for the dead animal.                     .

When Beck and Maddox leave the ranch, a livestock trailer enters, and Jesse and his foreman watch as the heifers are unloaded.  As soon as the trailer is empty, they lift up its floorboards to show hundreds of guns–semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and revolvers.  The weapons are headed to Mexico, and this is obviously not the first time such a trip has been made.

After Beck and Maddox return to the former’s home, the agent reluctantly explains that one of the government’s planes was highjacked the previous night and rerouted to kill Roy’s bull.  Maddox asks Beck to keep his eyes open.  What Beck doesn’t tell the agent is that he and Jesse go back a long way.  They were childhood friends, but over the years the two men have gone their separate ways.

The following day Beck and his father, the former sheriff of Lincoln County, drive to Snow Canyon to see Brin Cummings, Beck’s adopted sister.  She is the firearms expert on a movie shooting there, and Beck fills her in on the previous day’s happenings at the Double J.  Brin tells her brother that she knows Shiloah Roy, since the teenager is a volunteer at the Lincoln County Youth Center, where she herself is a part-time counselor.

Almost as an aside Brin mentions that Shiloah is very friendly with one of the young women at the Center, a “member” as the incarcerated teenagers are called.  She describes Mercy Vaughn as possibly “the smartest kid I’ve ever met.”  When Beck meets her, he’s inclined to agree, and he and Mercy begin working together to understand how the government plane had been taken over the night before and deliberately crashed into Roy’s ranch.

Beck is also facing two local issues–fires breaking out all over the county due to the hot, dry weather and two deaths from drug overdoses.  It’s a lot for the sheriff’s small department to deal with, and Beck will need the help of Brin, Mercy, and his staff to find the solutions to all of these issues.

Bruce Borgos has written a novel that expertly combines realistic characters, a swiftly moving plot, and a dramatic landscape that all work to make Shades of Mercy a fascinating read.  You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

Imagine if you had the power to drain someone’s life force and pass it on to another, more deserving, person.  Would you use it?  And under what circumstances?

Thea and her best friend Ruth are having breakfast in the London flat they share.  As Thea reaches across the table for the box of Cheerios, she accidentally touches Ruth’s hand and receives an electric shock that tells her that Ruth will die that night at 11:44.

The two women go out to a club that evening, and every time Thea bumps into someone on the dance floor, she sees the date and time of their death.  She and Ruth go outside for some air, and suddenly two men near them get into a fight.  One man falls directly into Ruth, and all at once she’s on the ground, not moving.  First Thea touches the man and then Ruth, and a minute later Ruth has revived and the man is dead.  Ruth, of course, knows nothing of this exchange and would have been horrified if she knew.

Then Thea sees Sam, an attorney she met during a summer placement.  He’s a successful attorney, something Thea always dreamed of being, but she failed the bar exam and is working in a low level human resources department for Zara, Ruth’s former lover.  Thea and Sam spend an evening together, and he gives her details about a case he’s working on, one in which Karly, a young unwed mother, is being physically abused by her lover Brendan.

Thea goes to Brendan’s office, they fight, and she, while defending herself, siphons his life force into her body.  A police officer appears and arrests her, charging her with Brendan’s death; Sam enters her cell and gets the charges against her dismissed.  He realizes there’s something out of the ordinary going on, and Thea, somewhat reluctantly, tells him about her supernatural power.  Far from being appalled, he approves of what she did. Not only that, but he has his own idea of what she should do next.

Thus begins the collaboration between Thea and Sam.  He has become outraged at the power of the ultra-wealthy people in society, and he believes that his knowledge of these people, arrogant and disrespectful of anyone lower on the societal or economic scale, means they are unworthy to continue living.  Combining these thoughts with Thea’s recently discovered power is the way, he thinks, to make society a more equitable place.

Although An Ethical Guide to Murder is obviously a fantasy, it brings up a number of thought-provoking questions.  Have some people forfeited their right to live due to their unethical or unlawful behavior?  Who gets to decide who lives and who dies?  Does one evil act mean that person is irredeemably lost, or can someone turn their life around and do something to make up for the previous act?  And how “good” must the person be who decides who will live and who will die?

Jenny Morris has written a mystery that asks a number of fascinating questions, questions that may have different answers depending on who answers them.  Thea is a captivating protagonist, a young woman with an unanswered question of her own that influences every thought she has.  Her response to that question may be different from yours, but is it wrong?

You can read more about the author at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.