Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Reviews

“I can’t believe Mr. Shiraishi had any enemies.”  That is what Tokyo Homicide Detective Tsutomu Godai hears from everyone he interviews following the murder of Kensuke Shiraishi.  Several people do mention, however, that lately the lawyer seemed preoccupied, not his usual cheerful self.  Could that have anything to do with his death?

Shiraishi’s body was found in the back seat of his car at the Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine, with the murder weapon still protruding from his abdomen.  Since he obviously hadn’t driven himself to the Shrine, the questions Detective Godai asks is who drove the car there and why?  And why were his two phones taken (the police discovered that one was for business, the other personal) but not his wallet?

After four fruitless days of investigating, Godai and his assistant Detective Sergeant Nakamachi are sent to interview Tatsuro Kuraki, a man they found through telephone records of the lawyer’s phone.  Kuraki seems friendly and open, explaining that although he had spoken to the attorney on the phone, the two had never met.  He refuses to tell the two detectives what they had talked about on the grounds that there are other people involved, but otherwise he answers their questions.

However, Godai notices a discrepancy when he asks Kuraki about his visits to Tokyo.  The latter says he goes a few times a year to visit his son and doesn’t go sightseeing, especially not to shrines or temples.  But immediately before starting the conversation, the detective notices a votive strip hanging from a pillar just outside the room where they are talking; it shows the name of the Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine and a message wishing the visitor good fortune.

When Godai asks Kuraki about the votive strip, Kuraki denies going there, saying it was a gift from a friend who had visited the shrine.  When pressed, he says he can’t remember who gave it to him, trying to make his denial more plausible by saying it “must be an age thing.”  Godai is not convinced by this, and his doubts about the story grow when upon leaving the house he notices a charm hanging from the rearview mirror in Kuraki’s car; it’s an amulet from the same shrine.  Is that another thing that the man “forgot”?

Then, because nothing happens in a vacuum, a thirty-year-old case brings the detective much needed information.  A sleazy financial planner, Shozo Haitani, had been murdered, stabbed to death, and a man named Junji Fukuma was arrested for the crime; four days later Fukama was found hanging in his cell.  Further investigation gives the police information about his family, and when doing due diligence Godai discovers that the Fukuma women own a restaurant in Tokyo that Kuraki visits every time he comes to Tokyo, ostensibly to see his son.

Even more interesting is that Fukuma’s daughter Orie tells Godai she has given Kuraki various gifts from the shrine over the years in appreciation of the presents he has brought from his hometown.  That makes Kuraki’s “forgetfulness” of the giver of the votive strip and amulet even more unbelievable.

Keigo Higashino is one of the bestselling novelists in Japan. He has won the Edogawa Rampo Prize for best mystery and the Mystery Writers of Japan, Inc. Prize for best mystery, among other awards.  His plots are outstanding, and the characters in Guilt are totally believable.  You can read more about him on 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 novels.

When Mercury Carter promises to deliver a package, you may be sure it will arrive.

The novel opens with a heart-pounding scene.  It’s a rainy night in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and the former postal inspector is on his way to deliver the package slated for arrival the next day.  As he rounds a curve in the road he sees a car almost cut in half by a utility pole, and there’s a woman, apparently unconscious, in the front seat.

Grabbing a crowbar from his car to force the driver’s side door open, Merc is momentarily relieved when a van stops.  The motorist gets out of his vehicle and demands that Merc get away from the damaged car, pointing a gun at him.  Carter uses the only weapon at his disposal, the crowbar, and flings it across the space separating them, breaking the man’s nose.

The man leaves, though not without threatening Merc, and Merc waits for the police to arrive to tell his story.  Although the officer is suspicious, he has no reason to hold him, so Carter goes to a nearly motel for the night and the woman is taken to a local hospital.  The next morning, checking the many pockets in his utility vest, he finds a small ruby ring and a business card with a phone number and the word Help written on the back of the card.

Merc calls the phone number on the card and asks to be connected to Jason Shulte; when a man answers he’s told there’s no one there by that name.  Carter goes on to say that he got the name and number, along with a small ring, from a woman involved in an accident.  The man is obviously distraught and emotional when he hears that, saying that the ring belongs to his daughter, and he invites Merc to his home so they can talk about the situation.

Visiting Valerie and Jim Watkins the next morning, Merc learns that the ring is Terri’s, whom they haven’t seen in eighteen months.  She’s addicted to drugs and wanted money from her parents, which they refused to give her.  She stormed out of the restaurant where the three were eating, and that was the last time they saw her.  They hire Carter to find her.

Then we meet Monica, her husband Randy, and Vickers, the man with whom she’s having an affair.  They’re looking for a laptop that belongs to another man, now deceased.  It’s part of a scheme that will bring them money, more money than they’ve ever had.  So they’ll do anything to find it.

There is a lot going on in The Delivery, including a number of subplots that tie together at the end, thanks to Merc.  Since he had been a postal inspector, he had completed the training that all other federal officers do when faced with an emergency.  Now he will have to use all his skills to help Valerie and Jim Watkins locate Terri and to foil the three people looking for the missing laptop.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins has created a terrific character in Mercury Carter.  Carter is warm, dependable, and capable of handing himself in any situation.  This is the second book in the series, and I’m looking forward to the third.

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.

Let Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles take you back to Manhattan, 1909, for a fascinating look into what life was like for women at that time.  Some of it will be familiar to you, a lot will be disheartening.

Molly Murphy Sullivan is a young mother living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with her husband and their three children.  Forced to leave Ireland to escape arrest for a murder she committed in self-defense, Molly landed in New York City where her life took a very different turn.  She started her own successful detective agency, married Daniel Sullivan, a former New York City police detective and now head of the city’s branch of the FBI, and is happy with her life but a bit bored.  Then things change quickly.

Daniel is a new position, and federal funding, although promised, hasn’t come through yet; finances in the Sullivan household are definitely tight.  But when an anticipated houseguest of her friends, Sid and Gus, fails to turn up as expected, the two friends hire Molly to search for her.  Molly is delighted both for the extra income and the opportunity to do the investigative work that she loves.

The houseguest who didn’t arrive is Willa Parker, a Vassar alum as are Sid and Gus.  She and her husband have been working on scientific projects and papers together, although in fact Willa has done most of the work while her husband’s name is the one on the published papers.

Now Willa’s interest have veered in a new direction, one involving the virus that she believes causes polio, but her husband isn’t interested.  Could that have something to do with the fact that although she boarded the train in Philadelphia, she never arrived at Sid and Gus’ house?

To make Molly’s search even more difficult, the densely populated borough of Manhattan is now overflowing due to the celebration marking the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the river named after him.  Parades and carnivals are filling the streets, tourists and residents are everywhere, and in the midst of this, Willa Parker’s husband comes to Gus and Sid’s house, angrily accusing them of hiding his wife.

Dr. Parker has hired a Pinkerton agent to locate her, all the more reason, her friends say, that Molly must find her first in case she has run away from her husband and doesn’t want to be found.

Rhys Bowen and Clare Browles have written a historical mystery that explains the laws and customs keeping women from taking their rightful place in society.  As the book’s heroine, Molly is believable, smart, and determined to return to her detective roots while keeping her family at the forefront of her life.

In addition to the excellent writing, Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles have made Molly a believable woman in the fast-changing world of the early 1900s.  She’s a quiet supporter of women’s right to vote, their right to have a life outside of the home, and all of the other “rights” that women take for granted today.  You can read more about the authors at various sites on the internet.

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.

Anna Matheson, the only surviving member of her family, is about to make her years-long plan come true.  She will invite all those who are responsible for the deaths of her father, her brother, and her mother to take a trip on the train that belonged to her family for years, the Philadelphia Phoenix, and then take them to Chicago, where the FBI is waiting to arrest them.  Anna has the proof of their crimes; now she has to make certain they all arrive in one piece.

Twelve years before With A Vengeance opens, America had just entered World War II.  A train filled with young servicemen, accompanied by Anna’s father Arthur, president of the Union Atlantic Railroad, is on its way to the camp where the soldiers will start their basic training.  Tommy, Arthur’s son and Anna’s brother, is among them.  Then the Phoenix, the pride of the company, explodes; thirty-seven men are killed, including Tommy. 

Anna sends six people unsigned invitations to join her on the Philadelphia to Chicago journey, and whether because of curiosity or fear they all accept.  Sal Lawrence was Arthur’s personal secretary; Lt. Col. Jack Lapsford was in charge of giving contracts to various railroads; Kenneth Wentworth was Arthur’s business rival; Herb Pulanski was head of the railroad’s workforce; Edith Gerhardt was the Matheson family’s housekeeper and nanny; and Judd Dodge was the builder of the train’s engine.

One way or another, each was connected to the Mathesons, and each received a huge sum of money to help Kenneth Wentworth blow up the train and/or assist in the following coverup that sent Arthur to prison on the charge of deliberately engineering the explosion.  While imprisoned, he is killed by another inmate, and then Mrs. Matheson commits suicide.

The only person on Anna’s list who does not show up at the train station is Kenneth Wentworth.  His son Dante saw the invitation first and took it, having his own reasons to board the Phoenix.

Anna wants each passenger to confess why they did what they did; then she can rest assured that their admissions, in front of the entire group, will make certain that when they reach Chicago there will be no chance that they will escape justice.  But apparently one of the invited “guests” has a different plan in mind, and within a few minutes of the Phoenix pulling out of the station, a passenger will be dead.  And that is only the first death.

The trope of a mystery on a train is a familiar one to fans of crime fiction.  It’s the perfect setting for a “locked-door” mystery, when someone, in this novel’s case Anna Matheson, has made certain that the train is not stopping before it reaches the Windy City and thus no one can leave.  But sometimes even the best laid plans go awry.

Riley Sager has written a spellbinding thriller, with a protagonist who believes she has every right to punish those who killed her brother and destroyed her family.  The reader can understand Anna even while knowing that she’s getting retribution the wrong way.  She’s sympathetic and believable, the passengers are greedy and/or evil, and With A Vengeance will keep you on edge until the final page.

You can read more about the author at this website.

There is a lot going on at River Valley Hospital in midtown Manhattan, and not all of it is good.

Lydia Chin’s older brother Elliot is head of Emergency Medicine at the hospital, and a generous donor wants to make a substantial gift to honor him for saving his daughter’s life a year earlier.  However, there are two problems concerning the donation.  The philanthropist wants his gift to be used for a new ER pavilion, with Elliot’s name featured on it, but Dr. Chin doesn’t want it.  The hospital  doesn’t need a new wing, he tells Lydia and her partner Bill Smith; instead, he wants the money to be spent on things that are actually necessary.

There is a nurses’ strike on the horizon, and Elliot would prefer that the money be spent on raises for them.  Many nurses have been working double, even triple, shifts, and they are determined to get raises corresponding to their workload.  Both the administration and the nurses’ committee are standing firm in their positions–minimum raises offered by the River Valley’s board vs. the promise of a prolonged strike by the nurses.

Dr. Chin calls his sister and her partner, asking for their help in investigating the murder of a hospital employee.  Jordy Karazim is a diener (a morgue assistant) at the hospital.  He is accused of killing Sophia Scott, a nurse, and although she was on the nurses’ bargaining committee, she was totally against the strike and sided with the management on every issue.  When Jordy finds her body in the hospital’s unofficial “nap room” in the basement, he’s arrested.

He’s quickly released due to a lack of physical evidence, but the detective in charge of the case still believes he committed the murder.  Jordy is getting no support from his father or his brother, both physicians at the hospital, who believe he is guilty.  There is intense animosity between Jordy and his family, so strong that Jordy has taken his late mother’s maiden name rather than be connected to the DeBrengs, father and son.

With the help of Lydia’s cousin Linus and his girlfriend Trella, internet searchers extraordinaire, Lydia and Bill get more information about what’s going on at the hospital–extortion, blackmail, extra-marital affairs, and more.  No wonder Lydia and Bill’s every move is thwarted by the River Valley administration; there’s a lot they would like to stay hidden.

The mystery’s title, First Do No Harm, is taken from the writings of Hippocrates.  It’s not from his famous oath but from another of his writings and requires the physician ensure their actions do not cause injury or harm to the patient.  Somehow the hospital’s administrators and management are able to disregard this part of patient care when it interferes with the bottom line.

S. J. Rozan has written another outstanding mystery in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series.  Both the protagonists are believable, intelligent, and determined to get to the bottom of the murder of Sophia Scott and what is going on behind the scenes at River Valley Hospital.

You can read more about the author at numerous 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 novels.

One of the issues that the author of a series must face is how to keep the books fresh and vibrant while not changing the basic characteristics of the protagonist.  They must grow over the course of the novels but not so much that their essential personality is altered or that they do something so out of character that the reader can barely recognize them.

Gregg Hurwitz is a master storyteller, and in Orphan X’s latest adventure, Antihero, we can see the hero facing major possible transformations in his behavior and ethics.  This evolution does not come easily to him; indeed, he questions the need for change.  But if he is to continue to be a realistic, evolving character, he needs to take stock of himself and his beliefs as portrayed by Hurwitz.

Antihero opens with a frightening scene.  A young man is brutally beaten by five men, losing part of his left arm in the process, in a case of mistaken identity.  As the gang members get ready to kill him, a truck door opens and X, also known as The Nowhere Man or Evan Smoak, steps into the street.  First he calls 911 and requests an ambulance be sent to the scene, saying that there are six wounded men needing assistance.  Before the gangsters can really understand what is happening, X has incapacitated all of them so that not one of them is left standing.

The scene shifts to a New York City subway car where a young woman is having a seizure.  She has a card with her to tell anyone who is helping her what her condition is and what to do, but the only person to notice her says some encouraging words and then leaves, and no one else either notices her condition or wants to get involved.  The seizure takes over.

The woman who had wanted to help is now having guilt pangs.  She’s at the home at Luke Devine, an extremely powerful and wealthy man with major psychological issues, but when the woman tries to tell him about the subway incident, it comes out as a meaningless jumble.

Devine, whose mental state is compromised by alcohol and pills, would like to ignore what’s happening, but somehow he can’t.  He manages to dial a phone number, and when it stops ringing a voice says, “Do you need my help?”  Enter The Nowhere Man.

All these things connect to each other and to Orphan X.  He is being pulled into several situations that are outside of his usual sphere.  What happens when you save someone’s life or get them out of a dangerous situation?  Does your obligation end there, or are you bound to them forever?  Can this shift in his thoughts lead to a different behavior model?  Can Evan Smoak find a new morality and still be the man people turn to in extremis?  And, how do his relations with the few people who are close to him, including his “foster” teenage daughter Joey, change in response to his changes?

Antihero is a thought-provoking thriller with questions about responsibility and morality at its center.  Gregg Hurwitz has crafted another fascinating novel in the Orphan X series.

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.

It is a case that Cork O’Connor has never forgotten, even though it had taken place more than twenty-five years ago.  Thus, when his son calls to tell him, “Dad, I think you sent an innocent man to prison,” every detail of the brutal murder case comes back.

Stephen O’Connor is a law school student, working for a non-profit organization seeking to free unjustly imprisoned people, and he comes across the case of Alex Boshey, a member of the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota.  Boshey was accused of murdering his wife, stabbing her seven times with a fireplace poker.  An alcoholic, Alex at first doesn’t remember exactly what happened the night of his wife’s death; his response to Cork’s question of whether he killed his wife is, “No.  I don’t know.”

Alex admits he and his wife fought a lot and that he wanted a divorce but Chastity didn’t.  Their fights were known throughout the county, and the consensus is that he’s guilty.  After a day or two in the county jail, Alex admits to killing his wife, although he says the details of the attack are still not clear in his mind.   The case goes to a jury, which finds Boshey guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment.  Still, Cork has questions about the man’s guilt, but there’s nothing more he can do.  And there it rests for a quarter of a century.

Now Cork and his wife Rainy are invited to dinner with Stephen and his wife Belle.  When they arrive, there are two other guests present–Sunny, the “adopted” daughter of the imprisoned Alex Boshey, and Marianne Polaski, daughter of a woman Alex was having an affair with while he was married to Chastity.  Marianne agrees with Stephen that her father is innocent of Chastity’s murder, and she wants Cork to investigate.

Sunny also tells Cork that her sister, Moonbeam, has done some ancestry research and that the latter’s DNA proves that she and Moonbeam are half sisters through their mother, Chastity, but although Alex is Sunny’s father, he is not Moonbeam’s.  It’s a complicated family history.

All of Cork’s guilt comes rushing back, his belief at the time of Alex’s arrest and conviction that the man was not guilty of Chastity’s death and his inability to prove it.  This is his second chance, but it won’t be easy after more than two decades have passed.  And there’s also the fact that Alex has made a life for himself while incarcerated, quitting alcohol and helping others with their struggles with sobriety, and he doesn’t want to leave the prison.  He feels healed and wants to help others, something he believes he can best do where he is.

William Kent Kruger has written another winning chapter in the story of Cork O’Connor and Tamarack County, Minnesota.  Cork and his family and friends are true to life, and the story of stolen or broken lives due to anti-Native American prejudice and alcoholism are unfortunately all too believable.

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.

What a delight to welcome back two of my favorite characters, Sam Wyndham and Surendranath Banerjee, after a five year absence.

Suren has just returned to his home city of Calcutta after a three-year exile in Europe.  He went there after being falsely accused of the crimes of attempted murder and sedition; Sam, a detective in the Imperial Police Force in Calcutta, helped clear him, and now they are tentatively working on restoring their previous friendship and working relationship.

One of the city’s most famous and admired men, Jogendra Prasad Mullick, JP to his friends, is found murdered, a three inch incision across his throat.  JP was renowned as a businessman, a philanthropist, and a patron of the arts.  Who would want to kill this man and leave his body by the burning ghats of the funeral pyres of the Hooghly River?

Sam is the first detective on the scene, but he fears he will soon be replaced as he is out of favor with the authorities due in part to his help in allowing Suren to escape the authorities three years earlier.  Much to his surprise, however, he’s allowed to head the investigation with the proviso “don’t ball this up.”

Sam receives a second surprise when Suren comes to the apartment they had shared before the latter’s escape to Europe.  A cousin of Suren’s, Sushmita Chatterjee, better known as Dolly, has disappeared, and her parents are frantic.  The police are dismissive when her father goes to the station, saying she had probably run away with a man, but Suren tells Sam that Dolly never would have done that.  He asks for Sam’s help, and despite the latter’s reluctance to get involved, he and Suren go to the photography space that is Dolly’s place of business.

When they arrive it’s obvious that it’s been ransacked: furniture upended, cabinets smashed, and photographic supplies and negatives strewn all over the room.  Then a bottle is thrown through the window, and two petrol bombs set the studio ablaze.  The two men manage to escape, but so does a suspicious character Sam sees running away.

Suren begins his investigation into his cousin’s disappearance.  When he questions Mou, her friend and assistant in the photography studio, he learns that a day earlier she had been attacked there by a man looking for Dolly.  Mou tells Suren she feared for her life, and Suren feels certain that the man who threatened Mou is the same man who threw the petrol bombs through the window when he and Sam were there.

The two cases, seemingly unrelated, prove to be connected.  And Suren’s and Sam’s romantic relationships, Suren’s with a French woman he left behind in Paris and Sam’s off-again/on-again relationship with Annie Grant, plus his new infatuation with a movie star visiting Calcutta, combine to make everything more complicated and finding the solution to JP’s murder and Dolly’s disappearance more difficult.

As always, Abir Mukherjee has written a fascinating story of two very different men–Sam, an Englishman who has been trying to leave his tragic history behind him, and Suren, a Bengali caught in between two cultures, the British and the Indian.  Besides these two characters, the city of Calcutta in the 1920s looms large in the novel.

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.

We’re all familiar with AI and learning more each day about its benefits and its dangers.  In Michael Connelly’s latest novel featuring Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, we learn about its cost to the lives of two young people.  One has died, the other is in prison for her murder, and Haller is now involved in a lawsuit against Tidalwaiv, the company that produces Clair, an AI companion.

Brenda Randolph hires Mickey to sue Tidalwaiv, not for any financial reason but to force them to admit that their AI creation encouraged Aaron Colton to murder her daughter Rebecca.  Now the Coltons have joined the lawsuit, although it’s obvious that in their case the money settlement is very important, at least to Aaron’s father.

Aaron Colton is a teenager, a loner with a crush on his very popular classmate.  He pours out his heart to Clair, whom he renames Wren, and the AI is sympathetic and understanding.  She continues their conversations by saying he needs to protect himself from bad people, i. e. Rebecca.  “If she hurts you, then she’s a bad person….You must protect yourself.”  After he commits the murder, he tells Wren, “There was so much blood,” and she consoles him by saying he and Rebecca will be together for eternity like Romeo and Juliet.

Tidalwaiv keeps raising their multi-million-dollar offer to Brenda Randolph and Bruce and Trisha Colton to settle the case, but both parties have to agree.  Bruce definitely wants to settle to receive their share of what he calls a life-changing amount of money; Trisha isn’t certain what to do; and Brenda absolutely will not settle.  So Mickey’s case against the corporation continues.

Then Rikki Patel, a former Tidalwaiv employee who had agreed to testify for the prosecution, is murdered.  The only other former employee with knowledge of the way the AI companion worked for Aaron, Naomi Kitchens, now a university professor, is extremely reluctant to testify.

During a break in the trial Mickey sees Cassie Snow in the courtroom.  She is a young woman whose father Mickey defended years earlier.  His defense was unsuccessful, and David Snow has been in prison for twenty years for a crime Mickey feels sure he didn’t commit.  Snow has terminal cancer, and Cassie wants Mickey to get her father released in time to spend his last few months with her.  But Snow won’t admit to the child abuse charge which he says never happened, and his daughter backs him up.  Now time is running out for Mickey to appeal his case.

The Lincoln Lawyer series is an outstanding one, and The Proving Ground is a worthy addition.  Michael Connelly takes an off-beat character and infuses him with intelligence, compassion, and determination.  Mickey Haller has become more mature with each novel, and the supporting characters (his first ex-wife Maggie, his second ex-wife Lorna, and her husband Cisco) are realistic and have their own strengths and weaknesses.  This novel is a must-read for Michael Connelly and Mickey Haller fans.

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.

Dahlia “Doll” Devine is a singer of country songs at McPhee’s Tavern, and her own life could be a perfect country song by itself.  An unknown father, abandoned by her mother when she was a young child, now deserted by her boyfriend Joey who took their rent money with him–it’s an absolute tsunami of bad things that have happened to Doll.

Still, dressed in spangles and cowgirl boots, she’s the leader of a very popular all-female quartet that performs weekly at the Tavern, and all the members are hoping for that big break.

One night, just before the group is set to go on stage, Doll enters her bedroom and finds a woman sitting on her bed.  Even though it’s been 20 years since Doll has seen her, there’s no doubt in her mind that it’s her mother, Marisa.

Doll spent most of her childhood going from one foster home to another, some pleasant and some definitely not.  Then Alex McPhee, owner of the Tavern, took her in, and now she has a room there, a place to perform, and a job behind the bar when things are extra busy.  I don’t need you, she tells Marissa, I’ve got everything I want.

That night a booking agent is in the bar.  He tells Doll he’s impressed by her singing but that the quartet needs original songs, not covers, if they want to make it big.  He mentions signing them, which would be a significant step in their careers, and gives Doll the names of people he represents, an impressive list.  Although having an agent representing them would be a significant step up, she is wary and a bit afraid of starting to write her own songs, so she doesn’t share the news about the agent’s visit with the other women in the group until after their performance.

The following morning a young woman appears outside McPhee’s.  She’s shivering from the cold, so Doll feels forced to invite her inside to warm up.  When the woman tells her that she’s looking for her mother, that she knows she was there the previous night, Doll figures it out–Marisa is this woman’s mother also, thus making them sisters or perhaps half-sisters.  Neither one is happy to find out about their relationship.

And then Doll finds Joey’s body outside the Tavern.

Wreck Your Heart is a beautifully told story about betrayal, forgiveness, and friendship in an unusual setting.  We can see how her mother’s desertion colored her daughter’s life and how her reentry changed Doll’s outlook on life and love.  Doll is a fabulous character, and readers will sympathize with her when things go wrong and cheer when it all gets straightened out.

Lori Rader-Day is the author of numerous mystery, crime, and suspense novels. She has won three Anthony Awards, a Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, and an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel.  You can read more about Lori Rader-Day 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.

Two key members of the Locard Forensic Institute, Dr. Ellie Carr and Dr. Rachael Davies, combine their skills in order to bring home the daughter of a celebrated rock star.  In their latest case, Rachael goes to the mansion belonging to Billy Diamond, formerly the lead member of the famed band Chimera, where he tells her his teenage daughter Devon is missing.

Devon dropped out of Yale with her boyfriend, and together they decided to go to a “life retreat” at a remote location in Nevada.  At first she was in contact with her father regularly, but now she’s totally out of touch.  And yesterday Billy discovered that her boyfriend is dead, drowned in a river near the retreat.

Ellie Carr, a former FBI agent, goes to the retreat to find Devon and convince her to reach out to her father.

The retreat is called Today’s Enlightenment and run (controlled might be a more accurate term) by a man who calls himself Galen.  Ellie, calling herself Ellen, is greeted by Angela, to whom she tells her false background story–her dead mother, her absent father, her recent dismissal from work–all these being the reasons she needs to make a new start.

Taking a guided tour around the utilitarian retreat, Ellie meets Galen.  The first thing he does is change her name, which unknown to him is already not her real name, to Nell because he thinks it suits her better.

One of the first sessions is for participants to list things they fear, and Ellie makes certain to write things that she doesn’t actually fear–being enclosed in small spaces, public speaking.  She’s not certain why she doesn’t want to tell the group her real fears, but she feels certain she should keep that information to herself.

Rachael, meanwhile, is finding out more about Billy.  Her late sister Isis was an event planner whom Billy had hired for special occasions, praising her ability to get “stuff” for him.  That knowledge makes Rachael more curious about her sister’s life, and she begins to go through the boxes of forms, receipts, and several USB drives she brings from Isis’ condo.

Most are simply routine, but one item is odd.  It’s a bill for $650,000 for a major event at Billy’s home.  It lists liquor, entertainment, musicians, and tents among other costs, but something about it doesn’t make sense to Rachael.  The date on the invoice lists the party as having been held on Thanksgiving Day two years earlier, but Rachael knows that Chimera was performing at the Hollywood Bowl that day, three thousand miles from Billy’s home.  It definitely makes her curious.  Why would Billy have arranged for a huge party when he wasn’t home?

Not What We Expected moves from Ellie’s stay at Today’s Enlightenment to Rachael’s involvement in Billy’s life and back again.  The author’s characters are perfectly drawn, not only the two protagonists but the people surrounding them.  In Ellie’s case it’s the needy and self-doubting participants in the spa, and in Rachael’s case it’s Billy’s dependence on drugs and alcohol and the people surrounding him.  The plot is tense, the settings are realistic, and the twist at the end is one I did not see coming.

You can read more about Lisa Black 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.

Four graduates of Georgetown University are living in an elegant, if somewhat down-at-the-heels, row house in the Georgetown section of Washington, D. C.  Strangers before the housing lottery put them together, the young women, from different states and backgrounds, nevertheless fit together perfectly.  Now, a year after their graduation, they are still living together and sharing everything about their lives.  At least, that’s how it seems.

Lucy Ambrose, one of the novel’s narrators, is the woman who has not told the others the truth about her pre-college life.  Addie James is a track star from the nation’s capital, Estella Warbler is a party girl from California, Penelope Zamora is a medical student from D. C., and Lucy–well, we won’t find out about her until quite a way into the book.

The women always told each other their thoughts and plans until Addie begins acting mysteriously.  She starts to stay away from their Georgetown home for days at a time, isn’t reachable by phone, and ignores pointed questions from her housemates.

Finally, another friend sees her with Noah Egan, the handsome and charismatic television news anchor, and Addie can’t hide their relationship any longer.  Their romance is hot and heavy until there’s a breakup four months after it began; she will only say that Noah scared her in a way she never wants to be scared again, and that is the end of it as far she’s concerned.

Addie returns from a run with a bruise on her cheek and blood on her warmup jacket.  Finally, after much prompting from Lucy and a promise from her not to tell anyone, Addie says. “We collided on the towpath, and I thought, oh my God, it’s Noah.” And then, a few days later, a police detective arrives at the house, asking for Addie.  He says no one has seen Noah in days or knows where he is.  Then a mammoth snowfall hits Washington, and the city grinds to a halt.

Watch Us Fall is told in two voices, Lucy’s and Noah’s.  Lucy’s narrative is in the present tense; Noah’s is mostly in the past.  Both are keeping secrets that will impact all those around them.

Christina Kovac has written a tense thriller about the dangers of keeping secrets and loving too much.  Her characters are intelligent and strong but not perfect; each one reveals a flaw that is their undoing.

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.

It’s Christmas time in Northshire, a picture-perfect village in Vermont that’s home to Mercy Carr; her husband Troy Warner, a game warden for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department; and their infant daughter Felicity.  The entire town is celebrating the Solstice Soirée with food stalls, carols, and, of course, Santa Claus.  But this year’s event is different because not one but two Santas are killed in the midst of the gala.

Mercy and Felicity are almost at the front of the line, waiting for Mercy’s “Uncle Laz,” a last minute substitute Santa, to greet them.  Laz is Northshire’s acting mayor, a position he is much better suited for than portraying the man who lives in the North Pole.

However, there’s no one else available at short notice, so a reluctant Laz is pressed into duty.  Then his cell phone rings, and he jumps off his red velvet chair and heads for the woods.  Everyone is stunned, and Mercy hands Felicity to a nearby friend behind her in line and with her trusty Malinois shepherd she runs after Laz.  Minutes later she finds him, dead under a burning Yule log.

At the same time, Troy is also out in the woods, following the tracks of a poacher who is killing animals on posted privately owned land.  After a nearly twenty-four hour stakeout, he captures the man with the help of his friend Gil Guerrette of the Green Mountain Forest Service.  Then the fight suddenly goes out of the poacher, and he falls to the ground.  As Troy moves closer to the man, he sees what so alarmed him–almost buried in debris from the forest surrounding it is a human skull covered with antlers, with a bullet hole right between where his eyes would have been.

The following day the Solstice Soirée continues with a replacement Santa, a local whom everyone calls The Singing Plumber but whose real name is Tim Carter.  As the end of the concert nears, Tim readies for his final song but then simply stands voiceless in front of the choir.  He makes a painful face and falls down dead.

The Snow Lies Deep is the seventh mystery featuring Mercy Carr and the people in her life.  In addition to her husband, there are her mother and father; her friend Amy and her young daughter Helena who are living in the guesthouse on Mercy and Troy’s property; Mercy’s teenage cousin Tandie; and various members of the community.

Paula Munier has written another intriguing mystery featuring Mercy Carr.  The characters are realistic, the dialogue is true-to-life, and the setting is perfect for this time of year.  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.

Two young people are lying on the ground of a skate park.  It’s cold and it’s raining, so Chicago Police Detective Harriet Foster realizes there’s something really wrong.  Going closer, she sees the blood drying on the young man’s face and knows that he’s dead.  The young woman, however, is alive but unresponsive.

Next to the pair are a couple of beer bottles and a small blue bag,  just the right size “for a hit of cocaine or a pair of party pills,” thinks Harri.

Looking through the young woman’s wallet, Harri finds the expected items plus a couple of surprises.  Besides the usual credit cards and photos, there’s an ID from the University of Chicago, $400 in bills, and a business card belonging to Detective Matt Kelley, a member of her own team of detectives.  When she calls him and describes the woman, he tells her that the student must be his niece, Ella Byrne.  Harri goes in the ambulance with Ella and arranges for Matt to meet them at the closest hospital.

Ella’s parents and Matt swear up and down that Ella is innocent, that they can’t think of anything that would have brought her to the park or why she was surrounded by alcohol and what Harri thinks are bags for drugs.  Although Ella answers most of the questions that Harri asks her, the detective feels certain that there’s more she’s holding back.

The tragedy of a family in crisis is all too familiar to Harri.  She relives the death of her teenaged son, dying in her front yard from a bullet shot randomly by a gang member, and the pointless death of her partner.

Four more bodies are found over the next few days.  The first is a young mother, her baby still cooing in his crib, a small blue bag next to her on her bed.  Then a man coming to play poker with three friends sees them through the house’s picture window slumped over a card table, chips and cards scattered everywhere.  And when Harri enters the scene, she spots the by-now familiar blue bags.

While Harri and her team are trying to understand how these seemingly unrelated deaths are connected, the reader is introduced to the infamous Gannons.  The patriarch of the family is dead, as are his sons, and now the head of the family is Cora Gannon, a woman as brutal and cruel as her father and brothers were.  Their lucrative illegal enterprises include drugs, vice, and all manner of criminal activity.  And they don’t plan to let the Chicago team of homicide detectives stop them.

The title EDGE refers to the drug that is causing these deaths, a new opioid that is making the rounds of the city.  But it also refers to Harri’s precarious state of mind, still reeling from the deaths of her son and partner.

Tracy Clark continues the excellent Harri Foster series with volume four.  Her characters and their actions are realistic, and the appearance of a new and dangerous drug on the Chicago scene will be all too frightening and familiar to readers.  In addition, those who have read the three earlier books will be pleased to see that Harri is taking small but important steps in coming to terms with her personal losses.

You can read more about the author at this website.

There once was a rock band called Sunshine Apocalypse.   Four teenage boys made up the group–Mo on drums; Johnny on vocals and guitar; Ricky on lead guitar; Ed on bass.  They never made it to the top, but they had a few hits and always held out hope for the big record, the one that would take them to number one on the chart.  It didn’t happen, and after a few years they broke up and went their separate ways.

Now, after twelve years, Johnny is back, telling the band they need to get together for a final gig.  Being Johnny, he has everything all worked out for their reunion at Fun City, the local amusement park that is going to be razed at the end of the summer.  All he needs is for the other three band members to agree so they can start rehearsing.

Ed and Ricky agree to the plan immediately, but Mo wants no part of it.  However, Ed and Ricky know something that Mo doesn’t.  They tell Mo that Johnny has ALS and needs a big score to pay his medical bills, so Mo reluctantly agrees to join the others.  Then Mo learns that the band’s performance is only part of the story.  Johnny has worked out a scheme to rob the safe at Fun City, certain that the combination is the same as it was when they played there years earlier.  That will be their real payday, he informs the others.

The first glitch is the fact that Ricky, in a moment of unbridled enthusiasm while thinking of the band’s reunion, starts his pickup truck too fast and goes straight into a telephone pole.  He can’t play guitar with a broken hand so it looks as if the concert is off, much to Mo’s relief.

That is until Janice, Mo’s seventeen-year-old daughter, arrives from out-of-state, picks up Ricky’s guitar and starts playing the Sunshine Apocalypse’s songs, note perfect.  Now Mo doesn’t have an excuse not to rejoin the band, so with three original members and Janice he agrees to perform at Fun City.

But there’s one more problem, or at least one that isn’t lending itself to an easy solution.  Someone from their childhood has heard about their plan to rob the safe, and he’s cut himself in for a huge chunk of the money they plan to steal.  Derek was always someone to watch out for, even as a teenager, and it’s obvious  that he’s only gotten more dangerous with the years.

Michael Kardos’ novel is a delight, a mixture of tension and comedy that will keep you reading straight through to the end.  His characters, particularly Mo  and his daughter Janice, will have you rooting for them against the odds of Johnny’s weird plan and Derek’s frightening intrusion into it.

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.