Enthusiastic readers of Deborah Crombie’s Kincaid/James police procedural series often have to wait a long time between books, but those readers are mollified by the excellence of the stories. The most recent book, A Bitter Feast, was a banquet for fans, with its Cotswold setting and closed country house plot. Following tradition, the new mystery…
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford. These famous words were written by Londoner Samuel Johnson, the author of A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755. It’s a fitting introduction to Bryant & May: Peculiar London, a rambling, eccentric tribute…
October 1890. It’s no surprise that private investigators Prudence MacKenzie and Geoffrey Hunter welcome the opportunity to “get out of Dodge” aka New York City: New York is too hot for them given the sordid sexual nature of their recent investigations. The partners are intrigued to be offered a case in Niagara Falls. They can’t…
A man sails to Ranaig, an obscure, fictional Scottish island. He’s on a mission to kill. He’d been working out how to kill Wallace Lockhart for months, evolving and discarding plans one after the other till his researches had eventually led him to this. It matched his existing skills, it embraced elements of poetic justice,…
A Taste of Poison brings to mind the old adage, “too many cooks spoil the broth.” Agatha Christie has gathered a miscellany of mystery writers to her country estate, all Detection Club members. It’s the crème de la crème of Golden Age crime fiction: Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and Anthony Berkeley. Christie’s right-hand woman, head…
The Earl and Countess of Wrexford are newlyweds but are currently in London instead of honeymooning at the earl’s country seat. It’s a matter of duty calls because of his elevated rank, as Wrexford and his bride are expected to be present during high-profile events. The visit of the Russian tsar certainly applies, “especially with…
Meg Langslow has a merry mess on her hands, although it wouldn’t be Christmas in the fictional town of Caerphilly, Virginia if all was well. Meg’s brother Rob, the creator/owner of the software company Mutant Wizards, is “doing a rush project” for AcerGen, a Canadian firm that specializes in “forensic genealogy and DNA analysis.” There…
The four retirees who comprise the Thursday Murder Club are wily, thoughtful of each other, and run rings around non-retirees. They live in an upscale retiree village in the bucolic English countryside (money does grease the wheels of aging). Those lively characters, all Coopers Chase residents, are the key to the series’ success. Joyce Meadowcroft…
Not every story that opens with a sense of “Once upon a time” has a happy ending. Many Grimm fairy tales are indeed grim and make readers uncomfortable, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Jackal is set in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a booming steel town in the 1800s. Seventy miles to the east of Pittsburgh,…
The Rising Tide will strike a chord of recognition with lovers of The Big Chill. Our deepest hopes, ambitions, and fears of failure are well known to the friends of our youth. They know where the bodies are buried, who feels guilt, who was betrayed, and who’s sitting on “long-held secrets.” The friends in The…
