Death's Last Run by Robin Spano is the third Clare Vengel Undercover mystery (available May 1, 2013).

A young snowboarder is found dead on the Blackcomb Glacier, and Whistler police want to close the case as suicide. The victim’s mother, a U.S. senator, says her daughter would not, and did not, kill herself. At her request, the FBI sends in an undercover agent — Clare Vengel — to find out who might have killed Sacha and why. Dropped into a world of partying with ski bums and snow bunnies, Clare soon discovers that Sacha was involved in an LSD smuggling ring. Worse: the top cop in Whistler is in cahoots with the smugglers, and Clare’s cover is too precarious for comfort. As suspicion snowballs, can Clare solve the case before she’s buried alive?

Sounds like your standard mystery novel, right? You read that back cover copy, and you’re pretty sure you know how the story’s going to go: Straight-Laced, Line-Toeing Federal Agent goes undercover and is forced to consort with Big, Scary, Dangerous Drug-Dealers in order to help Incredibly Important U.S. Senator win campaign by proving that A) her daughter didn’t kill herself, and B) drugs are the root of all evil. The end.

But you’re wrong. Because Death’s Last Run by Robin Spano isn’t your standard mystery novel. I mean, yes, it’s a mystery novel – and a damn good one, at that – but for my money, nothing that defies expectation at every turn can be classified as “standard”.

[No stereotypes here]

Board Stiff by Kendel Lynn is the first book in the Elliott Lisbon humorous mystery series (available April 30, 2013).

As director of the prestigious Ballantyne Foundation, Elliott Lisbon has her hands full. Not only is it her job to plan fundraisers and vet grant applicants, but the Ballantynes also expect her to fill their shoes as hosts whenever they’re away—a task that is often much trickier than it sounds:

Tod was helping me man the Bash in the absence of the Ballantynes, who were on safari in India. Or maybe it was mountain climbing in Pakistan. They entrusted me with their life’s work while away doing more life’s work. Tonight that included acting as one part host and one part referee.

“So what’s up? Is Mr. Abercorn dancing naked on the tables again?”

“Not quite,” Tod said. “You have three fires to put out, though Jane is more of a firestorm of seething lava and flaming fireballs.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.” I glanced at my watch. It was already past eleven, dreadfully late for a party that started at five. How did I miss seeing Nick Ransom for the last six hours? My lips tingled at the thought of him being so close. Traitors.

Tod snapped his fingers. “Hello, Elliott?”

“Right, melodramatic. Things can’t be that terrible, can they?”

“Jane is beheading board members, Mr. Colbert is serving guests from the canapés stuffed in his pockets, and Mrs. Kramer is singing with the band.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“They’re in the men’s room.”

[The rich are different...]

Penance by Dan O’Shea is a debut novel set in Chicago about political corruption, police detectives, and scores that must be settled (available April 30, 2013).

On its face, Penance by Dan O’Shea is the story of Chicago Police Detective John Lynch and his hunt for the Confessional Killer—a madman with a sniper rifle who’s been picking off penitent churchgoers.

But to classify Penance as a mere police procedural would be to do it a serious injustice. Because, you see, like all good crime fiction, this book is about so much more than its back cover copy might suggest. 

For starters, O’Shea’s debut is a revenge tale:

“I’ve been living with the fact that my father was murdered for most of my life, but always thought the guys who did it went down at the same time. Just found out they didn’t. Worse than that, just found out they set him up. Risky or not, I’m in.”

[And so are we...]

Prophet of Bones by Ted Kosmatka is an alternate-earth bioterror thriller (available April 2, 2013).

Scientist Paul Carlson is unprepared for what he finds when he’s summoned to a top-secret archeological dig on the remote island of Flores. He’s heard tales, of course, and been shown pictures, but the strange bones buried there appear to belong to a never-before-seen species of tool user—a species whose very existence could turn modern science on its head and bring chaos to the world’s religions.

This is actually quite fitting, for Paul is the protagonist of Prophet of Bones by Ted Kosmatka—a book that is itself a bit of a new species.

[The bones of a new genre?]

Criminal Enterprise by Owen Laukkanen is the second thriller in the Stevens and Windemere series (available March 21, 2013).

When first you meet Carter Tomlin, you assume he’s the protagonist of Owen Laukkanen’s new novel, Criminal Enterprise. You assume this because to think otherwise would be ludicrous. You sympathize with Carter. Empathize with him, even:

In Carter Tomlin’s world, a man provided for his family. He’d never considered himself a violent person. He wasn’t a drug addict or a gambler, didn’t cheat on his wife or his taxes. Until the layoff, he was a respectable man. A husband and a father and a decision-maker at the firm, a corner-office man on the executive track.

In Tomlin’s mind, real men dealt with adversity. They didn’t complain or talk about fairness. They didn’t take handouts; they solved their own problems. They provided.

Carter Tomlin? He’s a good man. An honest man. A man who’s trying his damnedest to take care of his family, but who just can’t seem to catch a break. He’s drowning, and he’s starting to pull his wife and children down with him, so you almost can’t blame him when he pulls his first heist: 

[We think it might not be the last...]

The Good Cop by Brad Parks is the fourth mystery featuring investigative reporter Carter Ross (available March 5, 2013).

Among the many reasons I enjoy being a newspaper reporter—not the least of which are the freedom, the fun, and the constitutionally protected right to announce when people are acting like idiots—one of the small-but-important pleasures is what I’m doing each morning at eight thirty-eight.

At 8:38 a.m., I imagine most gainfully employed, industrious members of our society are already enjoined in the struggle that is their daily grind. They have attended to their grooming needs, squeezed themselves into their workaday uniforms, rushed through a meal that puts the “fast” in “breakfast,” and made the necessary concessions to their caffeine addictions.

At 8:38 a.m., they are inhaling the carbon-tinged exhaust fumes from the car in front of them on the Garden State Parkway; or they are recovering from the latest skirmish in the ongoing Battle of No, You Cannot Wear That to School; or they are checking their emails, looking at their schedules, and generally girding themselves for all that is to come.

Me?

At 8:38 a.m., I do solemnly swear that I, Carter Ross, am asleep.

[Nice work if you can get it...]

Safe From Harm by Stephanie Jaye Evans is the sequel to Faithful Unto Death, a Bear Wells mystery set in Texas (available March 5, 2013).

On the face of it, Safe From Harm by Stephanie Jaye Evans is a traditional mystery—the second in a series set in Sugar Land, Texas, and starring minister, family man, and all-around good guy Bear Wells.

To simply take this tale at face value would be a colossal mistake, though, because Safe From Harm is so much more than your stereotypical traditional mystery.

This is partly due to the unique structure Evans chose for her tale; the book opens with the apparent suicide of troubled teen Phoebe Pickersley and then flashes back several months, essentially making Safe From Harm a murder mystery told in reverse.

It also doesn’t hurt that Evans is capable of achingly beautiful prose; at times, her writing is so lush and vivid that you just want to sit and stare at the pictures it paints in your mind:

[Reading improves your vision...]

Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria by Diane Kelly is the 4th book in the humorous mystery series featuring U.S. Treasury Department Special Agent Tara Holloway (available January 29, 2013).

“Men,” I said, shaking my head. “You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t shoot ’em.”

“You’ve shot men plenty of times,” Alicia said.

“I’ve shot at them many times,” I corrected, “but I only actually put bullets in three of them.” I took the left nut off the first and got the other two in the leg. But don’t worry. They totally deserved it.

Meet Tara Holloway: Annie Oakley of the IRS.

That’s right—I said IRS.

Now, I know what you’re thinking—I say “IRS employee” and you picture a pencil-pushing math nerd. Somebody who sits behind a desk all day poring over tax returns and trying to wring blood from a stone—the blood in this scenario being money, and the stone being you.

But you’ve got the wrong idea about Tara Holloway.

[We always admire a brilliant deduction...]

Extra Credit by Maggie Barbieri is the seventh book in the traditional mystery series featuring English professor Alison Bergeron (available December 11, 2012).

I read a ton of traditional mysteries, and while there’s a lot I like about the genre, I must confess: I hate the Stereotypical Traditional Mystery Heroine. Sure, she’s smart, she’s loyal, and she’s dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way. But she’s also bland, boring, and bears a strong resemblance to a doormat, and despite the fact that she’s probably seen more dead bodies than your average coroner and has undoubtedly survived multiple attempts on her life, she remains sweet and kind and doesn’t contain a single ounce of bitterness or self-doubt. She has no snark, no sass, no hint of what my mother calls “attitude.” And to be honest, I find that kind of fishy. Because nobody lives the life of a Stereotypical Traditional Mystery Heroine without picking up baggage. Hell, nobody lives ANY kind of life without picking up baggage. And if you claim otherwise, well, you’re either sheltered, or you’re lying, or you’re too young to know any better.

That’s why I’m always so delighted to stumble across a traditional mystery heroine with whom I can identify. Someone with verve. Someone with pluck. Someone who’s a little jaded, and a little bitter, and who’s been kicked around, sure, but still has some fight in her. A heroine, for example, like English professor Alison Bergeron, star of Maggie Barbieri’s Murder 101 Mysteries.

[Can’t say enough about verve and pluck...]

Skating on the Edge by Joelle Charbonneau is the third humorous Rebecca Robbins roller rink mystery (available October 2, 2012).

When Rebecca Robbins inherited the Toe Stop roller rink from her mother, she had no intention of keeping the place; she hoped to sell the business as quickly as possible so she could leave town and return to the life she’d built in Chicago. Things didn’t go according to plan, though, and since buyers haven’t exactly been falling over themselves to make an offer on the rink, Rebecca’s resigned to spending the foreseeable future in her old hometown of Indian Falls.

The latest of Joelle Charbonneau’s Rebecca Robbins Mysteries, Skating on the Edge, finds the residents of Indian Falls smack in the middle of their annual Native American Summer Days celebration. Rebecca’s been duped into taking a turn in the Senior Center’s dunk tank, but just as she’s about to climb in, she gets called away to assist her grandfather. A member of the local roller derby team—a skater nicknamed Sherlene-n-Mean—volunteers to take Rebecca’s place, but little does she know, the tank’s been rigged, and the poor woman is electrocuted upon hitting the water. Was Sherlene-n-Mean the intended target, or is somebody gunning for Rebecca? It’s in Rebecca’s best interest to help the police catch the killer before he or she can strike again, or her long-awaited exit from Indian Falls could be in a body bag.

[Roll away from trouble . . .]

Some Like It Hawk is the latest in Donna Andrews’s humorous cozy mystery series featuring blacksmith Meg Langslow (available July 17, 2012).

When the recession hit the United States in 2007, the going officially got tough, and ever since, news and pop culture both have been overrun with stories of economic devastation. Some of the stories have been infuriating. Many have been heartbreaking. But few, if any, have been uplifting—and even fewer still have had the audacity to be funny. That is, until the incomparable Donna Andrews put pen to paper and wrote the latest of her wildly popular Meg Langslow mysteries, the utterly fabulous Some Like It Hawk.

[Funny finances? Do tell!]

Every Last Secret by Linda Rodriguez, a traditional mystery featuring half-Cherokee campus cop Marquitta “Skeet” Bannion, is the winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Mystery award (available April 24, 2012).

Every Last Secret by Linda Rodriguez is a dark, twisty, turny tale of love, lies, loss, and murder on a quiet college campus. Corruption, fraud, violence, pedophilia, misogyny, blackmail, and murder—Every Last Secret has it all (and then some!). Sounds like a pretty gripping tale, right?

And gripping, it is. But the most compelling thing about Every Last Secret isn’t the plot—it’s the way in which Rodriguez chooses to tell her tale. Every last detail is filtered through the eyes—and the mood—of her main character, Choteau University’s chief of police Marquitta “Skeet” Bannion: every person, every set piece, every action. Rodriguez doesn’t just occasionally state how Skeet feels about an object or a circumstance—she shows you with practically every sentence she writes, the end result being a richness and intensity you might not expect to find in your average mystery or thriller.

[A depth of character, a depth of description...]

(Warning: this post contains some spoilers for Hilary Davidson’s first book, The Damage Done.)

Travel writer Lily Moore is no stranger to grief; in fact, having weathered both the death of her father when she was a child and the suicide of her mother when she was in college, she’s had to cope with more than her fair share.  Lily’s always been a survivor, though, and against all odds, she built for herself a happy life and a successful career.  So it’s not like Lily’s grief has ever managed to slow her down.

[Grief comes calling, as does death.]

These days, so many cozy heroines have antagonistic relationships with their mothers it’s almost a cliché. (Seriously—it’s right up there with “has a cat” and “is dating a cop”.  Neither of which is a bad thing, of course, but still, some variety would be nice. Maybe an amateur sleuth who dates an undertaker and has a pet chinchilla? Anybody?)

Such is not the case, however, with Suzanne Hart, proprietress of Donut Hearts and protagonist of author Jessica Beck’s Donut Shop Mystery series. Suzanne may be dating a state police investigator, but she puts paid to the notion that you have to hate your mama in order to catch your quarry.

[Who loves ya, baby?]

I confess – after I’ve closed the cover on a book, the details don’t stay with me for all that long.  After a month or so has passed, I’ve probably forgotten all but the broadest strokes of the plot, and I likely couldn’t tell you who died or whodunit if you put a gun to my head.

One thing I do tend to remember, however, is a strong sense of atmosphere.  For me, there are some books that take place in a world so fully realized that I actually grow nostalgic for it when I’m away; I find myself hankering to be surrounded by its sights, scents, sounds, and people.

Author J.J. Murphy created such a place when he wrote his first Algonquin Round Table Mystery, Murder Your Darlings, and I’ve been itching for a return visit ever since.  And now, thanks to the December release of Murphy’s latest, You Might as Well Die, I finally have my wish.

[Read on, if you wish. . .]

News flash: I’m officially over the trend of saddling strong, smart, female protagonists with weak and ditzy supporting character baggage.

I get why authors do it; there’s a certain misguided logic there. You want your main character to stand out – to look badass and independent, worthy of the title “heroine”. And if you surround her with a wishy-washy cast, she’s bound to look that much better by comparison, right?

Yeah. The problem with that is, you populate your book with those kinds of characters and not only is your protagonist stuck dealing with them, but your reader is, as well. And I gotta tell ya, there some days when the last thing I want to do is spend 300 pages in the company of a whiny, simpering sidekick/boss/sister/best friend. Which is why I was so delighted to stumble across Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly. The book in question stars Tara Holloway – a badge-carrying, gun-toting Special Agent with the Criminal Investigations Division of the U.S. Treasury Department. (That’s right – Tara’s a Tax Cop.) Tara may be an IRS agent, but she’s not afraid to kick a little ass when the situation warrants:

[Quick-dry topcoat and everything...]

Daddy issues:  all the cool kids have ’em.  No, seriously—name a fictional heroine you actually give a damn about, and chances are good she has a crapweasel for a father. 

On the downside, these issues tend to make our favorite leading ladies run screaming when faced with the prospect of a normal, healthy, long-term relationship.  But on the upside, surviving (or surviving without) those crapweasel fathers is also what helped turn them into the strong, independent, ass-kicking name-takers they are today.

[Warning: Paternal Varmint Ahead!]

Buffy Summers.  Sydney Bristow.  Quentin Tarantino’s The Bride.  Three tough-as-nails heroines who don’t take crap from anybody.  They’re strong, they’re crafty, and they’re self-reliant.  They have good heads on their shoulders, and they’re cool in a crisis.  But it’s not their weapons skills or their all-around ass-kickery that has earned these women a special place in my pop-culture-loving heart.  Any old muscle-bound thug or cyborg assassin can exact bloody revenge with a Hatori Hanzo sword, a Glock 19, or a broken broom handle, but these women?  They’re not mindless, soulless killing machines; they’re human beings.  They lead (semi-) normal lives, and they experience tragedy and heartbreak just like everybody else.  They cry, they grieve – sometimes they even break down.  And then they pick themselves up off the ground, and they keep fighting.

[You Go on about the Girls!]

Looking back, there’s a good chance I owe my taste in mysteries to the fact that I watched a lot of Moonlighting as a kid. You know, that old ABC show starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis as private detectives? The writing was sharp and funny, and the mysteries were light, but always intrigued. And then there was that fabulous chemistry between David and Maddie. Should they, or shouldn’t they? Will they, or won’t they? And if they do, will it ruin everything?

Lots of the books I read can lay claim to having good writing and compelling mysteries, but that last thing? The chemistry part? That’s a lot harder to find. Not that many authors choose to incorporate that kind of romantic entanglement into their books, and even fewer do it successfully.

Karen E. Olson and her Tattoo Shop Mysteries are an exception to that rule. From Olson’s new release, Ink Flamingos, here’s tattoo artist Brett Kavanaugh on her friend-slash-rival-slash-potential-love-interest Jeff Coleman:

[A smoking tattoo gun...]