Second Sister by Chan Ho-Kei, translated by Jeremy Tiang, is a very timely and propulsively plotted tale of cyberbullying and revenge, about a woman on the hunt for the truth about her sister’s death. Older sister Nga-Yee is almost home after a long day at the library. The only thing on her mind is a…
The interplay between upstairs and downstairs, mistress and maid, never gets old, as fans of Downton Abbey will attest. Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, make formidable investigators because of their access to every stratum of society. They don’t sugarcoat people’s foibles, but their inquiries are leavened by compassion and concern. September…
Death in the Family introduces Senior Investigator Shana Merchant as she attempts to solve a murder on a small, storm-struck island. The setting for a Death in the Family is privately-owned Tern Island, one of the Thousand Islands. The Sinclair family owns it lock, stock, and baronial-splendor barrel. Senior Investigator Shana Merchant and her colleague,…
Before plunging into the Patricia Marcantonio’s second Victorian mystery, consider, what are the most famous unsolved crimes in history? Ding ding, Jack the Ripper: check out a short refresher on his hideous crime spree. The sensational brutal murders of five prostitutes in London’s East End in the autumn of 1888 by an unknown killer who…
Alone in the Wild by New York Times-bestseller Kelley Armstrong is the fifth book in her Casey Duncan series, where the hidden town of Rockton is about to face a challenge none of them saw coming: a baby. Alone in the Wild is the fifth Rockton novel, set in the fictional town in Canada’s Yukon…
Boston private investigator Nick Heller is nobody’s fool. Take his clients Herb Martz and Mort Vallison. Herb hired Nick to prove that his partner, Mort, was trying to kill him. Nick reached out to Mort, who took the bait. A week later, Mort came to my office to discuss business. I assured him the office…
Louisa Luna turns newspaper headlines into heart-stopping thrillers. Two Girls Down introduced Alice Vega, “a private investigator known for finding the missing,” and Max “Cap” Caplan. Two girls went missing in Cap’s small Pennsylvania town and Alice (who lives in San Diego) was hired to find them. Private detective Cap knew the local scene, so…
In Many Rivers to Cross by Peter Robinson, Inspector Banks is dragged into a disturbing world of drugs, guns, and possible sex trafficking. Like many long-running series, open-ended storylines are a feature of the Inspector Banks mysteries. Not every investigation is tied up with a neat bow on the last page. Careless Love, the last…
Bound for Murder by Victoria Gilbert is the fourth book in the Blue Ridge Library Mystery series, where library director Amy Webber learns it wasn’t all peace and love among the “flower children” when a corpse is unearthed on the grounds of a 1960s commune. Bound for Murder is a cozy mystery set in Taylorsford,…
Mrs. Laetitia Rodd works hard for her money. She is the middle-aged widow of a clergyman—her beloved Matt—and neither of them expected a “vigorous man of one-and-fifty, who had known scarcely a day’s illness in his life,” to die suddenly and without “making provision for his widow.” It’s 1851, a turbulent time in England: horse-drawn…
