Mysterical-E

Book Reviews

The Second Deadly sin by Asa Larsson
A group of hunters in Sweden’s northern wilderness is shocked by what they find – human remains – in the stomach of their quarry, a rogue bear. At the same time, in a remote village, a woman is found brutally murdered and her grandson is missing. Neither event seems related to the other except in the mind of prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson. As happens, a rival keeps her from investigatin requiring her to go around the official avenues and look into the case with the help of police inspector and friend Anna-Maria Mella. Uncovering the reverberations of a century old crime, the two investogators are pitted against vicious opponents and horrifying truths. With the story alternating between the old case and the present, the reader is in for a literary treat. Fifth in the series by Asa Larsson, this entry is as ;good as all the rest.

Two books by Richard North Patterson
Loss of Innocence
Thriller author Patterson continues his digression from thrillers and gives readers a follow-up to 2012's Fall from Grace. This is the second entry in a trilogy and takes place in 1968 with Whitney Dane, a child of privilege, looking forward to her September wedding to Peter Brooks, on Martha's Vineyard, where her family has a summer house. But early one morning, Whitney encounters Benjamin Blaine, a college dropout who grew up on the island and worked for Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Whitney will never be the same after meeting Ben. And the story takes off from there. A prequel to Fall from Grace (2012) and gives readers another helping of Patterson’s talents.

Eden in Winter
The conclusion of the Blaine family saga has Adam Blaine protecting his brother and his uncle from accusations that one of them killed his father. Readers of this trilogy will be versed in the family secrets and struggles that have gotten the story to this point and will definitely enjoy seeing things get wrapped up for the Blaine family.

Boystown 6: From the Ashes by Marshall Thornton
Chicago, 1984, Winter. Nick Nowak isn’t in the best of shape. A gay P.I., he hasn’t taken any cases in a while, and instead works as a bartender. But, someone manages to get his attention and his cooperation in investigating the death of a priest. Though the man appears to have died from a heart attack, Nick notices that the facts don’t add up. As usual, the Boystown books evoke the 1980s well and all the characters are well drawn and complex. The characters grow and learn with each installment in the series and this book is no exception. Readers are in for a treat with this book.

Murder on a Stick by S. L. Smith
Murder at a state fair, where just about anything on a stick is available, makes this intended-to-be-peaceful event less than tranquil. With thousands of fairgoers, it’s surprising no one witnesses the crime. The victim is also puzzling which makes the list of suspects larger than expected. Pete Culnane and Martin Tierney investigate the case and find plenty of lies and twists to keep them busy.

Ostland by David Thomas
Based on the true story of one of the worst Nazi war criminals, this novel combines elements of the police procedural and the courtroom thriller. It includes a well paced narrative and plenty of detail and mystery. David Thomas confronts some basic questions of good and evil and how human beings can perpetrate horrific acts upon one another. In wartime Berlin the idealistic young detective Georg Heuser joins the Murder Squad in the midst of an extensive manhunt for a serial killer murdering women on S-Bahn trains and leaving their bodies by the tracks. Heuser is soon promoted by the SS and sent off to oversee the murder of thousands of Jews in an area the Nazis call Ostland. Years later Heuser assumes his diabolical past has been forgotten. But a young lawyer, Paula Siebert, searching through Soviet archives, discovers Heuser’s crimes. Now the chase is on.

This Private Plot by Alan Beechey
Oliver Swithin, author of bestselling Finsbury the Ferret children’s stories and amateur sleuth, along with his girlfriend, Scotland Yard Sergeant Effie Strongitharm, are visiting his parents in the Cotswolds village of Synne. Effie decides that, following an ancient local custom, a nude nighttime streak across the common will get Oliver liven things up for the couple. Running into her boss and his wife, Oliver’s aunt, who are also observing the custom, ruins the mood. But the problems don’t stop there because Oliver discovers a body hanging from the local gallows tree. The deceased is a former radio broadcaster. The police think it’s suicide. Oliver doesn’t agree and finds evidence of blackmail which may have driven him to suicide or did it? Discovering the victim’s secret might also lead to finding the blackmailer and clearing up the mystery. Plenty of secrets are discovered. Lots of humor, twists and turns make this a great read.

The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel
The book opens with the murder of an entire family on their farm in Bavaria. Based on a true, still-unsolved case, this book uses a blend of eyewitness accounts, third-person narrative, and case files, to tell the horrifying story. There are many twists and turns and much to be learned about what others thought of this family. This novel is intricate and deftly done which readers will enjoy. Her mastery of the case and the many characters involved will keep readers turning pages.

Shark Fin Soup by Susan Klaus
In this second Christian Roberts mystery, Roberts, a young Floridian, has retired from horse racing and decides to cruise the Caribbean with his wife on his new sloop. When a murder happens, Roberts becomes the prime suspect. Guilt ridden, Roberts believes he caused the death, and desperately wants to end his pain. But a promise to the victim keeps him from doing anything drastic. The victim asked him to save the sharks. Roberts quickly becomes a champion of the shark preservation movement. Roberts takes on what seems like an impossible task: stopping the slaughter of sharks. Becoming the eco-terrorist Captain Nemo, Roberts’s every move is tracked by the FBI. There are plenty of threads to follow in this novel and fans of Klaus’s other book, Secretariat Reborn, will be happy with this installment.

The Splintered Paddle: An Ava Rome Mystery by Mark Troy
Ava Rome considers it her job to protect the defenseless. In this outing, she takes on the cases of Jenny Mordan, a working girl battered and harassed by a police detective, and Cassie Sands, a teenager mixed up with a marijuana grower. Rome, an intense individual, has her work cut out for her when the pot farmer joins forces with the detective and one Norman Traxler (someone Rome put behind bars when she was an MP). Now, Ava needs to protect herself as well as the defenseless girls she has sworn to defend. The book takes place in Hawaii but it’s an island adventure the likes of which you may not have seen before. Troy fills the book with Hawaiian lore and history and it becomes a character in itself.

Face Value: A Rachel Gold Mystery by Michael A. Kahn
Rachel Gold, single parent and a St. Louis attorney, knows that the law requires time, energy, and stamina. Many lawyers cant hack it, some, like Sari Bashir, take extreme measures to get away from the grind. Sari apparently fell to her death from a high floor and it’s rules a suicide. But a genius with Asperger’s Syndrome who works in the frims mail room says it’s homicide. He’s sure of it and the only one to really listen is Rachel Gold. She goes on to uncover a major criminal operation and in doing so opens a dangerous set of circumstances for her and anyone associated with her.

Death by Hitchcock by Elissa D. Grodin
It’s opening night of the Hitchcock Film Festival and, like a paean to the celebrated director, Bunny Baldwin, a student in the Film Studies Department at Cushing College, is found strangled to death. Physics professor Edwina Goodwin decides to play detective and along with her romantic interest, Police Detective Will Tenney, investigates the murder. The strip of fim tied around the victim’s head, the signs she may have been poisoned and more, give Goodwin a lot to work wit. And there are plenty of suspects as well, unfortunately for Goodwin, they all have solid alibis. Whispers of Hitchcockian themes wend theor way through the book, adding yet another layer to this fun read. Well written, erudite, and engaging, this is a read that won’t disappoint.

The Richebourg Affair bby R.M. Cartmel
Commandant Truchaud of the Paris police deals with plenty in the French capital, but never thinks he’ll encounter crime and violence in his home province, Burgundy. But when his brother dies and Truchaud must visit, he finds a heady stew of crimes including a scandal over wines, a murder and more lurking beneath the serene surface of the village of Nuits-Saint-Georges. His brother is the murder victim and he cannot understand who would want his brother dead. As he delves into the mystery, he discovers that Richebourg can literally be a wine to die for. Readers learn a lot about the province and wine production as well as being encountering some interesting characters. The Richebourg Affair is the first of a trilogy.

Vengeance Is Mine by Reavis Z. Wortham
It’s October, 1967, and after a busy summer, the people of Center Springs, Texas want to return to their quiet way of life. Unfortunately, mob enforcer, Anthony Agrioli has heard enthusiastic descriptions of Center Springs as the perfect place to settle. So the hit man and his blonde girlfriend need a place to hide from a Las Vegas crime boss. Center Springs soon becomes a gangster battlefield. But they aren’t after Agrioli at first. There’s plenty packed into this novel from crooked townsfolk, to murders, to unforgettable characters.

Dead Float by Warren C. Easley
Small town lawyer Cal Claxton is delighted when his best friend and fishing guide, Philip Lone Deer, asks him to help guide an upcoming trip to the Deschutes River, Oregon’s legendary trout fishing venue, with a group of executives from a high tech Portland firm. But the trip takes a bad turn when a member of the fishing party is murdered. Everyone is a suspect, including Cal. Was the company’s bad business the reason for the murder? Or, was there something even more sinister going on? Great atmosphere and well drawn characters help to make this an exciting whodunit.

Hell With The Lid Blown Off by Donis Casey
A twister cuts a deadly swath across Boynton, Oklahoma during the summer of 1916. Alafair Tucker’s family and neighbors are not spared but no one mourns for Jubal Beldon, who’d made it his business to know the ugly secrets of everyone in town. It never mattered if Jubal’s insinuations were true because rumor can be as ruinous as fact. It’s discovered that Jubal was already dead when the tornado carried his body to the middle of a fallow field. The question now is: was it murder? Dozens would have been happy to kill him, some of them Jubal’s own relatives. Sheriff Tucker and his deputy investigate and turn up some surprising conclusions.

The Replacements by David Putnam
Ex-con Bruno Johnson an ex-detective from Los Angeles is hiding from the FBI in Costa Rica. He’s also supporting eight children he illegally rescued from abusive homes. Tending bar is his only way to manage. Barbara Wicks, a former colleague and the chief of police in Montclair, California, walks into his bar shocking to the core. Turns out she’s there to request Bruno’s help in recovering two kidnapped children. The kidnapper, Jonas Mabry, who Bruno rescued as a small child. Mabry is demanding a million dollar ransom and Bruno has no choice but to help. Risking arrest and maybe worse, he refuses to turn his back on the children.

Muzzled by Eileen Brady
Veterinarian Kate Turner makes her rounds one morning which includes rescuing a family’s hamster from a vacuum cleaner. While visiting an estate where champion Cavalier King Charles spaniels are bred, Kate finds murder victims and twenty-seven blue-ribbon dogs running wild. Police suspect a murder-suicide, but Kate proves the famous best-in-show champion is missing from the estate and different motives become apparent. She discovers suspects and motives everywhere in town. Was the couple murdered for money? For their champion dog? The business of showing dogs is ruthless and Kate’s adventure provides some evidence for that. But there may just have been something else going on which resulted in murder.

Scratched by J.J.Patrtridge
Algy Temple, pool player, sleuth, and university lawyer, investigates the suspicious death of a retired university official, his involvement in a high stakes pool tournament in Providence becomes an obligation to be endured. His investigation has Algy on a path that leads to Rome and into a past story of corruption and conspiracy. Links to the pool tournament, to gambling and mobsters are. Add an abduction, a Ponzi scheme, an outraged Italian-American community locked in a culture war with the University, a hustler’s last gambit for recognition, and a fiancé focused on their upcoming wedding, and this is one investigation readers won’t soon forget.

Family Matters edited by Anita Page
Meet the family. All the families. The vengeance minded, the desperate, the craven, and the deadly – all are relatives packed neatly into this volume, like an unruly Thanksgiving dinner gone really bad. Twenty short stories by members of the New York / Tri-State chapter of Sisters in Crime are diverse in theme and mood. Like the city itself can be, the stories are funny, lethal, and surprising. From one end of society to another, from the poor to the rich, from the not-well-connected to the very well heeled, this collection lights up the pages. They all have one thing in common – families with far too much nastiness under the surface and plenty of motives. The tales range from tones of fun to dark and dangerous.

Nursing Homes are Murder by Mike Befeler
Paul Jacobson, who suffers from short-term memory loss, is on the job again. This time, he becomes an undercover resident at a nursing home, helping the Honolulu police track down someone accused of sexual assault. The police list three suspects and Paul begins investigating though none appear suspicious. But things take a wild turn when the woman who had been assaulted is found murdered. After another sexual assault takes place, someone tries to smother Paul to keep him from completing his investigation. Eventually though, Paul confrints the culprit and is taken at gunpoint. Befeler has a real feel for his subject and a soft spot for his main character. A satisfying read for his fans.

Death Takes A Mistress by Rosemary and Larry Mild
Rosemary and Larry Mild have another volume in their mystery series featuring amateur sleuths, Daniel and Rivka Sherman. The Shermans have given up successful careers in other fields to become booksellers in The Olde Victorian book store in Annapolis, Maryland. Right away, things happen. Ivy, the daughter of a mistress seeks revenge on the murderous lover who killed her mother and deserted her in infancy. Ivy lands in Annapolis after discovering that her father belongs to one of four families there. Seeking employment as a clerk at The Olde Victorian Bookstore, she finds friendship, advice, love, and more from Dan and Rivka. But, of course, Ivy wants to find her mother’s killer. A good read that will keep readers up at night.