5 New Books to Read this Week: March 7, 2017

Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most!

This week, Nicolás Obregón publishes his debut novel—a gripping tale of vicious murders in Tokyo—and Allison Brennan releases the 12th installment in her Lucy Kincaid series! See what else this week brings in the way of books:

Blue Light Yokohama by Nicolás Obregón

Newly reinstated to the Homicide Division and transferred to a precinct in Tokyo, Inspector Iwata is facing superiors who don't want him there and is assigned a recalcitrant partner, Noriko Sakai, who'd rather work with anyone else. After the previous detective working the case killed himself, Iwata and Sakai are assigned to investigate the slaughter of an entire family, a brutal murder with no clear motive or suspect. At the crime scene, they find puzzling ritualistic details. Black smudges. A strange incense smell. And a symbol―a large black sun. Iwata doesn't know what the symbol means but he can hear it whispering to him: I am here. I am not finished.

As Iwata investigates, it becomes clear that these murders by the Black Sun Killer are not the first, nor the last attached to that symbol. As he tries to track down the history of black sun symbol, puzzle out the motive for the crime, and connect this to other murders, Iwata finds himself racing another clock―the superiors who are trying to have him removed for good.

Read an excerpt from Blue Light Yokohama, and then check out Katherine Tomlinson's review!

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Make Them Pay by Allison Brennan

Lucy Kincaid and Sean Rogan are finally tying the knot. Two weeks before their wedding, a surprise visitor shows up at their door: Eden, Sean’s estranged sister from Europe. She claims she’s in town for the wedding and wants to mend fences. Lucy invites Eden to stay with them―after all, family is family―but her boss, SSA Noah Armstrong, knows far more about Eden’s sketchy past than he’s let on.

While Lucy is focused on her investigation tracking down dozens of children sold through illegal adoptions, Noah begins a quiet investigation of Eden and her elusive twin, Liam. He’s certain that, since they’re both thieves, they're here for a job or a heist. But they are up to something far more sinister than even Noah can imagine.

Liam has a score to settle with his family, and Sean has something he wants. The twins will do anything to get it―including putting Lucy’s life in danger. It'll take everyone―Kincaids and Rogans alike―to stop Liam before someone dies. Unfortunately, Liam's treachery has unforeseen consequences for Sean and Lucy, as a longtime enemy of the Rogan family hellbent on revenge sees an opportunity to make them all pay…

Read an excerpt from Make Them Pay!

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The Weight of This World by David Joy

A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.

Read an excerpt from The Weight of This World, and then check out David Cranmer's review!

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The Whole Art of Detection by Lyndsay Faye

Author Lyndsay Faye was introduced to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries when she was ten years old and her dad suggested she read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” She immediately became enamored with tales of Holmes and his esteemed biographer Dr. John Watson, and later, began spinning these quintessential characters into her own works of fiction—from her debut novel, Dust and Shadow, which pitted the famous detective against Jack the Ripper, to a series of short stories for the Strand Magazine, whose predecessor published the very first Sherlock Holmes short story in 1891.

Faye’s best Holmes tales, including two new works, are brought together in The Whole Art of Detection, a collection that spans Holmes’s career, from self-taught young upstart to publicly lauded detective, both before and after his faked death over a Swiss waterfall in 1894. In “The Lowther Park Mystery,” the unsociable Holmes is forced to attend a garden party at the request of his politician brother and improvises a bit of theater to foil a conspiracy against the government. “The Adventure of the Thames Tunnel” brings Holmes’s attention to the baffling murder of a jewel thief in the middle of an underground railway passage. With Holmes and Watson encountering all manner of ungrateful relatives, phony psychologists, wronged wives, plaid-garbed villains, and even a peculiar species of deadly red leech, The Whole Art of Detection is a read for Sherlockians and any fan of historical crime fiction with a modern sensibility.

Read more of Lyndsay Faye's thoughts on Holmes!

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Mister Memory by Marcus Sedgwick

In Paris in the year 1899, Marcel Després is arrested for the murder of his wife and transferred to the famous Salpetriere Asylum. And there the story might have stopped.

But the doctor assigned to his care soon realizes this is no ordinary patient: Marcel Després, Mister Memory, is a man who cannot forget. And the policeman assigned to his case soon realizes that something else is at stake: For why else would the criminal have been hurried off to hospital, and why are his superiors so keen for the whole affair to be closed?

This crime involves something bigger and stranger than a lovers' fight, something with links to the highest and lowest establishments in France. The policeman and the doctor between them must unravel the mystery―but the answers lie inside Marcel's head. And how can he tell what is significant when he remembers every detail of every moment of his entire life?

Read Doreen Sheridan's review of Mister Memory!

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