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Week of August 3, 2010
Dictator by Tom Cain
In partial tribute to Wilbur Smith’s adventure novels, Cain sends “accident man” Samuel Carver to Africa on a mission of “regime change.” But trying to bring down dictator Henderson Gushungo leaves him leery of his employers -- and combating the return of an old enemy. Carver finds himself both hunter and prey.
Week of July 27, 2010
The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker
This witty and warm sequel to Bruno, Chief of Police (2009) finds Bruno Courrèges, the head cop in a rural French village, looking into vandalism at a secretive nearby research station and investigating an American wine magnate for murder, while also trying to enjoy pleasures both of the flesh and the farm.
Week of July 20, 2010
The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
Though of humble origin, Wolf Hadda had become successful and happy -- until he was set up for a heinous crime, and thrown in prison. A psychiatrist finally helps him win parole, only to have Hadda return home and plot revenge. Can the psychiatrist help Hadda unravel his dark past before violence destroys his future?
Week of July 13, 2010
Faithful Place by Tana French
Frank Mackey planned to leave Ireland in 1985 with his girlfriend, Rosie, but she disappeared before they could go. Twenty-five years later, Mackey -- now a cop -- returns to the neighborhood of his youth in Dublin, where Rosie’s remains have been found and where Mackey must solve a mystery from his dysfunctional past.
Week of July 5, 2010
Thrillers: 100 Must Reads edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner
Pairing modern writers (Lee Child, David Liss, Gayle Lynds, Jeffery Deaver, etc.) with memorable works (everything from Beowulf and The Mysterious Island to Jaws and Chinaman’s Chance), this volume of essays explores the rich history of thriller novels at the same time as it offers insights into human emotions and fears.
Week of June 28, 2010
Far Cry by John Harvey
Years ago, Ruth and Simon Pierce’s only daughter went vacationing in Cornwall -- and wound up dead. Now the more protective Ruth’s second daughter is missing. It’s up to cops Helen Walker and Will Grayson to find links between these cases, and determine whether a stranger or someone closer to the family is to blame.
Week of June 21, 2010
A Night of Long Knives by Rebecca Cantrell
In this sequel to A Trace of Smoke (2009), journalist Hannah Vogel and her adopted son, Anton, are bound for Switzerland via zeppelin in 1934. But they’re diverted to Germany and kidnapped by a powerful Nazi militia leader who, to escape prosecution for homosexuality, plans to wed Vogel and claim Anton as his progeny.
Week of June 14, 2010
A Fierce Radiance by Lauren Belfer
Building on the acclaim she received for City of Light (1999), Belfer delivers here a World War II-era drama that stars a Life photographer, Claire Shipley, who’s sent to report on a new “miracle drug,” penicillin. The business and politics surrounding penicillin’s production lead to suspicious deaths, acts of espionage, and other twists.
Week of June 7, 2010
The Anniversary Man by R.J. Ellory
John Costello’s life changed drastically when, 20 years ago, he and his lovely girlfriend, Nadia, were attacked by the “Hammer of God” killer. Nadia died, while Costello retreated from society. Now, as another slaying spree begins, Costello may have special knowledge of its pattern -- but might not survive to prove he’s right.
Week of May 31, 2010
Agents of Treachery edited by Otto Penzler
Deceptions both historical and modern, war-connected as well as terrorism-rooted, find places in this paperback collection of 14 short (and mostly satisfying) international espionage adventures. Among Penzler’s elite squad of contributors are Robert Wilson, Charles McCarry, Dan Fesperman, Stella Rimington, Lee Child, and John Lawton.
Week of May 24, 2010
A Better Quality of Murder by Ann Granger
Former lady’s companion Lizzie Martin joins her husband, Scotland Yard Inspector Ben Ross, to investigate the 1867 murder in London’s Green Park of Allegra Benedict, the Italian wife of a Piccadilly art dealer. Among the questions worth asking: Why was Allegra seen just hours before her death, trying to peddle her brooch?
Week of May 17, 2010
A Curtain Falls by Stefanie Pintoff
After a Broadway chorus girl is found dead onstage, dressed in the leading lady’s costume and without a sign of violence upon her, Captain Declan Mulvaney calls up his former partner, Detective Simon Ziele, to help. This is the second time a chorine has died recently under such circumstances. Is it evidence of a serial killer at work?
Week of May 10, 2010
The Whisperers by John Connolly
His probe into the misbehavior of an ex-soldier, who’s returned to Maine after duty in Iraq, drives private eye Charlie Parker into a larger case involving smuggling operations across the Canada-U.S. border, suicides among military veterans, valuable Middle Eastern antiquities and mythological forces supposedly unleashed by war.
Week of May 3, 2010
Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland
This sequel to 2008’s delightfully exotic Moonlight Downs finds half-Aboriginal, half-white Australian police officer Emily Tempest probing the demise of an elderly geologist. The crime, allegedly committed by that scientist’s eccentric friend, may relate to theories about the earth’s surface having once been completely frozen over.
Week of April 26, 2010
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green
Almost a decade before Sherlock Holmes debuted, Green introduced the first detective star of a book series, resolute Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force, in this forgotten 1878 tale about the murder of a wealthy retired merchant. Was one of his nieces to blame? Gryce and a rising young lawyer investigate.
Week of April 19, 2010
Infamous by Ace Atkins
Following Devil’s Garden, his terrific 2009 novel about comedian Fatty Arbuckle and Dashiell Hammett, Atkins takes on another real-life figure: Depression-era gangster George “Machine Gun” Kelly. Infamous follows Kelly, as -- with his wife’s goading -- he embarks on a three-month crime spree that includes the kidnapping of an oil baron’s son.
Week of April 5, 2010
Midnight Fires by Nancy Means Wright
Headstrong Mary Wollstonecraft (the future mother of Frankenstein writer Mary Shelley) has just signed on as the new governess at an Irish castle in 1786, when three murders propel her into the unlikely role of sleuth -- a role destined to test her mettle as well as the resiliency of her young heart.
Week of March 29, 2010
Lost River by Stephen Booth
After finding himself helpless to save an 8-year-old girl from drowning at a popular Peak District attraction, DC Ben Cooper becomes involved with the child’s family -- only to determine they’re complicit in secret-keeping. Meanwhile, DS Diane Fry is in Birmingham, resurrecting personal memories and increasingly in need of Cooper’s help.
Week of March 22, 2010
Death Watch by Jim Kelly
In this sequel to Death Wore White (2009), murder squad detectives Peter Shaw and George Valentine investigate crimes 18 years apart: the disappearance of young Norma Jean Judd, and the recent incinerator death of her twin brother, Bryan. Their probe unearths a world of nefarious doings at the hospital where Bryan worked.
Week of March 15, 2010
212 by Alafair Burke
In her third outing (after Angel’s Tip), NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher investigates the murder of a university coed who’d been threatened via the Internet. As links are discovered between that young woman and a slain real-estate agent with a double life, Hatcher realizes there’s much more to this case than cyber obsession.
Week of March 8, 2010
Once A Spy by Keith Thomson
Unlucky gambler Charlie Clark didn’t know his Alzheimer’s-inflicted father had been a legendary spy, until his Brooklyn apartment was blown to smithereens. Now, during moments of lucidity, the elder Clark is showing some peculiar talents, while the two men flee both CIA assassins and other malefactors in this satirical debut thriller.
Week of March 1, 2010
Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman
Hired to find a famous jazz man’s daughter, Washington, D.C., gumshoe (and former hoodlum) Willis Gidney locates somone who might have been the girl’s mother -- only to become the suspect in her slaying. Now he must contend with a jingoistic congressman, hard-nosed businessmen and a secretive young woman to finish his search.
Week of February 22, 2010
Do They Know I’m Running? by David Corbett
What begins with the deportation from California of Faustino, the uncle of 18-year-old Roque Montalvo, becomes a perilous road-trip story, as Roque’s cousin connives a scheme to rescue Faustino -- one that will have him mixing with gangsters, a mysterious Palestinian, and a beautiful young woman already promised to a vicious criminal.
Week of February 15, 2010
The Detective Branch by Andrew Pepper
It’s 1843, and London crook-turned-copper Pyke -- now with the Metropolitan Police’s new “Detective Bureau” -- probes the apparent robbery-related death of a policeman ... which may be connected to the demise of tavern keeper ... which may in turn link to slum lords and an inspector rising rapidly through the New Police ranks.
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Week of February 8, 2010
The Serpent Pool by Martin Edwards
While trying to solve the seven-year-old death of an aspiring young writer, found drowned in a shallow pool in England’s Lake District, DCI Hannah Scarlett becomes involved as well with the recent killings of rare book dealers -- apparently all victims of somebody unhealthily obsessed with Thomas de Quincey’s tract On Murder.
Week of February 1, 2010
The Information Officer by Mark Mills
The slaying of a young woman on the brutally bombed Mediterranean island of Malta in 1942 threatens finally to undermine that island’s essential defiance against Nazi invasion. It’s up to British officer Max Chadwick to keep this murder under wraps until he discovers whodunit, and until the danger to Malta passes.
Week of January 25, 2010
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
Adam Kindred came to London, looking for a job. Instead, he winds up at the center of a murder mystery -- the prime suspect in the killing of an immunologist. Meanwhile, a coup is in the offing at the deceased’s company, and papers in Kindred’s possession are integral to its foiling, and Kindred’s future.
Week of January 15, 2010
The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett
In his fourth adventure (after Bangkok Haunts, 2007), pot-smoking Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep tries to figure out who murdered a visiting Hollywood movie director. But he’s distracted by his interest in an exiled Tibetan lama and by the efforts of his corrupt boss to maintain control over Bangkok’s lucrative illegal activities.
Week of January 11, 2010
The First Rule by Robert Crais
Making his second starring appearance (after 2007’s The Watchman), cop-turned-mercenary Joe Pike goes looking for the home invaders who did in his former colleague. With some help from gumshoe Elvis Cole, he confronts Eastern European gangsters and ATF hotshots, and faces old grudges and animosities that are anything but settled.
Week of January 4, 2010
Deadly Communion by Frank Tallis
While dealing with a private patient convinced that he’s spotted his doppelgänger in the streets of Imperial Vienna, psychoanalyst (and Sigmund Freud follower) Dr. Max Liebermann also helps police chase down a killer whose behavior is both darker and less predictable than usual -- a new nightmare of the early 20th century.
Week of December 28, 2009
Dying Gasp by Leighton Gage
Manaus, Brazil’s old jungle-surrounded rubber capital on the Amazon River, backdrops the third case (after Buried Strangers, 2009) for Chief Inspector Mario Silva. He heads there in search of a rich politician’s granddaughter and her friend, only to face a malevolent woman doctor and indifference from the local constabulary.
Week of December 21, 2009
A Murder on London Bridge by Susanna Gregory
Rebellion is in the air as Thomas Chaloner, 17th-century detective and former spy, investigates an assassination on London Bridge that could portend disaster for Restoration monarch King Charles II. Are religious animosities behind this killing, and is further violence ahead? Chaloner has his work cut out for him in his fifth adventure.
Week of December 14, 2009
Ticket to Ride by Ed Gorman
In his eighth adventure (after Fools Rush In, 2007), small-town Iowa lawyer Sam McCain finds himself in 1965, dealing with an ailing father, the loss of a budding love interest, and the murders of old friends/rivals after a Labor Day get-together. As his own world comes apart, can he put together the clues to solve those slayings?
Week of December 7, 2009
Faces in the Pool by Jonathan Gash
Antiques “divvy” and crime solver Lovejoy is back -- and back in prison. His release depends on him wedding a wealthy woman who’s searching for her missing ex-hubby. Although he fears being roped into a revenge plot, Lovejoy goes along with the plan. But first, he must deal with emigrants controlling large stockpiles of antiques.
Week of November 30, 2009
Murder on the Cliffs by Joanna Challis
While visiting Cornwall, England, in the wake of World War II, a young Daphne du Maurier -- not yet famous as the author of Rebecca -- stumbles upon the body of a beautiful woman in a nightgown. Intrigued and looking for literary inspiration, she pursues the mystery to a mansion ballooning with restless secrets.
Week of November 23, 2009
Lullaby for the Nameless by Sandra Ruttan
In their third appearance, RCMP constables Craig Nolan, Ashlyn Hart, and Tain investigate slayings that remind them eerily of the first case they ever worked together, in What Burns Within (2008). Could they have made mistakes that left a killer free to continue his crimes? Or is a copycat murderer on the loose?
Week of November 16, 2009
Village of the Ghost Bears by Stan Jones
Alaska State Trooper Nathan Active (White Sky, Black Ice) must connect his discovery of a dead, unidentified hunter in a remote creek with a deadly recreation center fire, the poaching of polar bears, and a plane crash in the state’s Brooks Range. Jones illuminates Eskimo culture as adroitly as Tony Hillerman did Native American culture.
Week of November 9, 2009
Washington Shadow by Aly Monroe
In Washington, D.C., with John Maynard Keynes, who is negotiating a post-World War II loan for Britain, agent Peter Cotton (The Maze of Cadiz) gets caught up in a power struggle involving a woman from the U.S. State Department, a Soviet ex-tank commander, and skullduggery behind the pursuit of a new world order.
Week of November 2, 2009
The Big Wake-Up by Mark Coggins
After flirting at his local laundromat with a young student from Buenos Aires, only to promptly see her murdered, San Francisco P.I. August Riordan is drawn into a bizarre case involving the peripatetic remains of Argentina’s most famous first lady, a mummification expert, and a legacy from the father he never knew.
Week of October 26, 2009
Quarry in the Middle by Max Allan Collins
Set during the Reagan years, this third Hard Case Crime novel (following The Last Quarry and The First Quarry) to feature hired killer Quarry finds him caught betwixt two Mississippi River casino proprietors, both claiming the same territory. Author Collins’ protagonist will need both smarts and firepower to survive their clash.
Week of October 19, 2009
The Geneva Deception by James Twining
Asked to probe the pilfering of a long-lost painting by Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, retired art thief Tom Kirk finds himself in the middle of a larger investigation involving the Italian mafia, a murderer who stages his killings to look like Caravaggio works and a Roman cop suspicious of official corruption.
Week of October 12, 2009
The Violet Hour by Daniel Judson
Caleb Rakowski, a young auto mechanic in a town full of wealthy beach-dwellers, is protecting a pregnant friend from her abusive hubby. But that tough assignment is nothing, compared with his trying to save a female hostage and help another friend who’s being pursued by killers unfamiliar with the meaning of mercy.
Week of October 5, 2009
The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell
The past is catching up with Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford. After spotting a prosperous van driver, whom he suspected of murder in his long-ago first investigation, Wexford implores his partner to look more closely at the man. Meanwhile, the CI’s wife worries that the daughter of an immigrant family is being forced into marriage.
Week of September 28, 2009
Stardust by Joseph Kanon
Ex-serviceman Ben Collier returns to post-World War II California to find his film director brother, Danny, in critical condition. Was his fall from a hotel window related to his role in an investigation of Hollywood’s “red ties”? Collier must fend off opponents -- and the unexpected advances of Danny’s widow -- to discover the truth.
Week of September 21, 2009
The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
The murder of a stranger at the bistro and antiques shop in Three Pines, Quebec, raises suspicions about that store’s proprietor, a beloved figure with a vague past and extraordinary business success. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache’s search for answers will lead him into the deep woods and down a few blind alleys.
Week of September 14, 2009
If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr
Leaping backwards in time from his adventures in A Quiet Flame, we find Bernie Gunther in Berlin in 1934, as Nazis expel Jews in preparation for that city’s coming Olympic Games. Gunther becomes dangerously entangled with a crusading journalist, a German-Jewish gangster, and crooked schemes to profit from the Olympiad.
Week of September 8, 2009
Evil for Evil by James R. Benn
Sent into Northern Ireland during World War II to find 50 rifles stolen from a U.S. Army base, Lieutenant Billy Boyle (Blood Alone) teams up with a lovely Irish woman working for British Intelligence. Together they try recover the weapons, while preventing IRA hostilities from harming the Allies’ fight against Nazi Germany.
Week of September 1, 2009
The Complaints by Ian Rankin
After penning 17 Inspector John Rebus novels, Rankin introduces a new protagonist: Edinburgh policeman Malcolm Fox, who’s tasked with investigating dirty cops. Here Fox is told to probe the activities of Jamie Breck. He doesn’t expect, though, to discover things about Breck that make him a danger to others -- including Fox himself.
Week of August 24, 2009
A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
Bess Crawford volunteers for the British nursing corps during World War I, only to wind up tending to the sick aboard the HMSS Brittanic. There she befriends a dying soldier, who asks her to carry a message to her brother in England -- a message that will thrust her deep into the midst of tragedy and murder.
Week of August 17, 2009
Hemingway Deadlights by Michael Atkinson
It’s hard to believe that nobody else ever thought to turn Ernest Hemingway into a detective before. Atkinson’s story is set in 1956 in Key West, where Papa -- ducking his fourth wife and writing frustrations -- decides to look into the death (by harpoon) of an old drinking companion. The start of a promising new series.
Week of August 8, 2009
Blood Line by Mark Billingham
The supposed domestic slaying of a woman in North London turns weird after DI Tom Thorne discovers that her mother had herself been done in 15 years before by a serial killer named Raymond Garvey. Now, Thorne must work fast to save the children of Garvey’s other victims from a new and twisted killer.
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