Untold Damage by Robert K. Lewis is a dark mystery debut featuring a drug-addicted former cop (available April 8, 2013).

Mark Mallen is a former undercover cop for the San Francisco Police Department. Now he’s a heroin junkie, estranged from his wife and nine-year-old daughter. He spends his days shooting up, scoring, and making kites for the daughter he never sees.

He woke up with a needle in his arm.

Waking up with the pin still in him was something new. First time, actually. Made him think of how Vodka was the last drink a chronic drunk can take. Because their stomach’s given out from all the abuse heaped on it. Vodka was the last stop before a coffin. The last line in the sand, crossed.

When Oberon Kane, a cop that Mark had worked with in the past, shows up at his place, Mark is instantly ashamed of his appearance and living conditions.

[But shame isn't enough to straighten out a junkie]

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger is a literary mystery and coming of age story set in 1961 (available March 26, 2013).

It’s 1961 in New Bremen, Minnesota, and a mentally handicapped boy has been inexplicably hit by a train. It wasn’t unusual for little Bobby Cole to play on the tracks, but from what the police can tell, it looks like he just lay there and waited for the train to claim him. There should have been plenty of time for him to get out of the way from the oncoming train, but the police have no evidence to suggest that foul play was involved. The town is devastated by this news, and it’s cast a pall over the citizens of New Bremen. It’s also the event in which thirteen-year-old Frank Drum begins his story.

[Foul play, or just play?]

Evil in All Its Disguises by Hilary Davidson is the third Lily Moore mystery and is set in Acapulco (available March 5, 2013).

Lily Moore has just arrived at the Hotel Cerón in Acapulco on a press junket when one of her fellow journalists, Skye McDermott approaches her, wanting to talk. She’s traveled with Skye before and has always enjoyed her company, but Skye is obviously distraught and needs someone to confide in. After a conversation that confuses, more than enlightens Lily about Skye’s situation, Skye leaves the table to take a phone call, and never returns. Lily is puzzled, especially since Skye not only mentioned Lily’s ex-boyfriend, Martin Sklar, but she also left behind her bag containing her passport. Skye is nowhere to be found and Lily is at a loss. It also seems that the hotel manager, who is connected to Martin, and the person in charge of the press junket aren’t interested in finding Skye at all. Soon, she begins to notice some odd things about the Hotel Cerón, beginning with her own room.

[And not odd like stale mints on the pillow, either]

A Good Death by Christopher R. Cox is an atmospheric almost-traditional mystery set in Thailand (available February 19, 2013).

A woman is found dead of an apparent OD in a grimy backpackers’ hostel in Thailand, a needle still stuck in her arm. A passport found at the scene identifies her as Linda Watts, a Thai refugee who found her way to the U.S. as a child, and supposedly made good in the finance industry. It soon comes to light that a half-million-dollar life insurance policy was up for grabs, and Linda Watts’s insurance company believes she’s still alive. Enter PI Sebastian (Bass) Damon. Soon, Damon is in Thailand and up to his eyeballs in trouble. After all, Thailand is a whole other world, full of corruption, death, and wild, exotic beauty. Is Linda Watts’s death a good death? That’s what Sebastian must prove, against all odds. Unfortunately, his surroundings constantly work against him, and it’s this use of time and place (Thailand in the ’90s) that makes this mystery so atmospheric.

[And atmosphere is only the beginning]

Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore is a supernatural noir novel set in Los Angeles about a necromancer hunting his sister’s killer (available February 5, 2013).

In 2012, Stephen Blackmoore burst onto the scene with his supernatural noir City of the Lost, featuring the rough and tumble Joe Sunday. Now he’s back with Dead Things, the story of Eric Carter, a powerful necromancer who’s haunted not only by the ghosts he sees on a daily basis, but also by his own past. He’s just finished the takedown of a killer who cheated death and is using voodoo mojo to commit heinous crimes when he gets a call from an old friend. Carter’s sister, Lucy, is dead, and Carter knows he must get to the bottom of it, but when he visits the crime scene, he finds out that her death was only a tool to get his attention. As he heads out find answers, he thinks about the sister he hasn’t seen in fifteen years, and about her place in a family of powerful mages.

Lucy could barely manipulate a coin toss. That puts her ahead of most people with talent, but still at the bottom tier.

I wouldn’t say she was a disappointment to our parents, but she was the black sheep. Mom and Dad had magic to spare. Some of it got to me. Almost none of it went to Lucy. She practiced relentlessly. Kept telling me that one of these days she’d get that coin toss down pat and show me. She never did.

[Time to make amends for the past...]

The locked room mystery has always held a special fascination for suspense fans.

Perhaps the most popular—and earliest—of them is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” in which a mother and daughter are murdered—the mother so brutally ravaged she is almost decapitated and the daughter strangled and stuffed up a chimney—in a room locked from the inside and otherwise inaccessible. In 1841 this was pretty potent stuff. Keep in mind, the mystery genre was not established until the 19th century, and Poe’s stories of murder and mayhem were an extremely popular diversion.

As popular and undeniably entertaining as Poe’s stories were, the Golden Age of detective fiction (mostly the 1920s and 1930s) ushered in a master of the locked-room mystery subgenre, John Dickson Carr. Carr’s novel The Hollow Man was voted the best locked-room mystery of all time by a group of authors and reviewers, and in fact gives a rather detailed explanation for crime writers as to how a criminal could engineer the appearance or illusion of a sealed room, when, of course, logic dictates that the murderer must have had a means of escape.

[Almost a perfect crime!]

Raymond Chandler is considered one of the fathers of noir for good reason. His wonderful creation, Philip Marlowe, is one of the most popular detectives in crime fiction, and all of his books were adapted for films. In my opinion, the best of these is The Big Sleep (1946) adapted from the Chandler novel of the same name and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It’s also directed by Howard Hawkes, one of the masters of that film period and his skill at directing such a sweeping, complex piece is firmly on display. Don’t let complex scare you away though. The point of The Big Sleep is in the journey taken to find out whodunit, not actually the “who” who “dunit,” so sit back and enjoy Bogey and Bacall at their best. For an updated version, you can try the 1978 adaptation starring Robert Mitchum.

[Adding to the “To Be Watched” List...]

The Tangled Bridge by Rhodi Hawk is a paranormal thriller (available October 30, 2012).

Lapses in time are par for the course for Madeleine LaBlanc and out of body experiences are becoming more and more common. A family legacy has left her in league with a river devil, whom she calls Severin, but she’s not quite sure if the river spirit is friend or foe. As the novel opens, Madeleine loses time and finds herself at the scene of a murder by the levee. As she and her boyfriend Ethan wait for the police, Severin shows her a vision.

[Not a vision of loveliness...]

Beluga by Rick Gavin is the second book in the humorous noir series featuring former cop Nick Reid and his partner Desmond (available October 30, 2012).

In Rick Gavin’s second outing starring former cop Nick Reid and his partner, man of few words Desmond, Desmond’s former brother-in-law, fresh from prison, has commandeered a load of Michelins that need to be sold quick. Nick and Desmond just happen to have a little extra cash, and decide to “invest” in the tire haul, in spite of initial misgivings. Turns out they really should have listened to their instincts, because some very nasty people are connected to those tires, and they’re not afraid to lay some serious hurt on Nick and the gang. Nick and Desmond are no pushovers, though, and they’re more than ready for a fight.

[Don’t “tread” on them!]

You’ve heard the saying “Behind every man is a good woman”, yes? Well, the same holds true for gangsters. To be sure, the famous gangsters of the Dirty Thirties, like Bugsy Siegel, John Dillinger, Al Capone, Clyde Barrow, and Pretty Boy Floyd were killers and thieves (among other unsavory things) but did that stop their women from loving them and staying by their sides? Not these ladies! In fact, they even helped their men commit their crimes, cementing themselves in the public consciousness forever. These women took “lovin’ the bad boy” way too far, so you have to ask yourself: what was in it for them? I’m guessing money and the excitement of notoriety, at least for some, so check ’em out, and you be the judge!

[Was it an adrenaline rush or a stolen heart?]

Back in May, I introduced a few dames of noir that are worthy of top spots on your reading list. Well, I’m back with more, so here we go!

I believe I mentioned Cathi Unsworth in my last post, so we’ll start with her, shall we? Ms. Unsworth, a London noir dame, is the author of The Not Knowing, The Singer, Weirdo, and Bad Penny Blues. She also edited the London Noir anthology in 2006. If you love books that deal with the seamy underbelly of London, and the gritty London music scene, particularly in the ’60s and the ’80s, mixed with a healthy dose of mayhem and murder, Ms. Unsworth is your gal. She’s got an eye for detail that will leave you reeling.

[And it’ll be the best feeling you ever had!]

Vanishing Girls by Katia Lief is the third psychological suspense novel featuring cop-turned-P.I. Karin Schaeffer (available June 26, 2012).

There’s a killer on the loose, and now he’s hit Brooklyn. A young girl has been hit by a car and a prostitute is dead at the same crime scene. Karin Schaeffer is an ex-cop and soldier, and her worry for a cop friend’s PTSD has her accompanying him to more than one crime scene. Still haunted by the death of her first husband and young daughter, as well as a recent miscarriage, the sight of the young girl, a victim of a hit and run, especially tugs at her heart.

I moved closer to the stretcher and in a dull spray of headlight from one of the cop cars, saw her face: small, with creamy darkish skin as if she’d just returned from an island vacation, and silky hair the color of burned wheat, a long strand of which spilled over the side of the stretcher. She wore small gold star earrings and her fingernails were painted blue, with the perfect sheen of a fresh manicure. Her feet were bare; each toenail was painted a different color.

Karin speculates to her friend that the girl might be a runaway, but the evidence says otherwise.

[When in doubt, listen to the evidence . . .]

When most people think of noir/crime fiction (casual violence, knocking heads, guy’s guys, and blowzy dames), lots of names come to mind. Here, I’ll throw out a few, classics first:  Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, James M. Cain, and more recently, Derek Raymond, Elmore Leonard, and the list goes on. Notice a theme? Yep, all men! Don’t get me wrong, I love hardboiled, noir crime fiction, and all of these authors  have brought wonderful work to the table, but it’s time the dames of noir had a (big) piece of the spotlight, so here we go.

Let’s start with Patricia Highsmith. The wildly talented Ms. Highsmith is one of my faves, and she’s a local girl (Ft. Worth, Texas!), and also thought to be one of the first great female noir authors. Her first novel was Strangers on a Train. You know the one: it was famously made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Maybe you’re also familiar with a film called The Talented Mr. Ripley? That was hers too, and Tom Ripley is one of the most disturbing characters in crime fiction history, in my opinion. Her work was punctuated by violence and very dark humor, and if you haven’t discovered her yet, you’re in for a real treat. Sadly, Ms. Highsmith passed away in 1995, but she has a bibliography of over 20 novels and many short stories, so what are you waiting for?

[All the noir ladies, now put your hands up!]

Last Call for the Living by Peter Farris is a southern noir thriller, a novel of psychological terror and suspense (available May 22, 2012).

Last Call for the Living is not your momma’s mystery. Heroes are in short supply in this dark, gritty, southern noir grinder of a novel, but the characters who populate it, and their strong but strange bonds, make the novel a standout in its field.

At the center, there’s Charlie Colquitt, who goes to his job as a bank teller on a Saturday morning only to be kidnapped at gunpoint by Aryan Brotherhood member and ex-con Hobe Hicklin. Charlie is a bit of a savant, smothered by the fierce, protective love of his mother, and all he wants to do is build rockets. Life is pretty simple, if a bit staid, and it’s all he knows.

[All that is about to change]

Sure, most of us aren’t the serial killers, jewel thieves, or mobsters we read about, but we still wouldn’t want anyone poking their noses into our business. Literature is filled with sleuths we wouldn’t want anywhere near our dirty laundry, but they’re oh so fun to read about. Let’s have a look at the top five I wouldn’t want on my case, should I have done something . . . slightly less than legal.

1. Charlie Parker (The Charlie Parker series by John Connolly)

Charlie’s been through just about the most heartbreak that you could imagine, with the murder of his wife and child. He carries this heartache with him through every case he tackles, and the ghosts of his family always seem to be just outside his line of vision. Charlie is willing to make some hard decisions in order to do the right thing, and his sense of right and wrong almost verges on righteousness.  He will do anything, and I mean anything, to keep those he loves safe, and if a case is brought to his attention that he’s willing to take on, especially one involving a child, watch out, he’s unstoppable.

[What other unstoppable forces are on this list?]