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Week of May 25, 2009
Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill
Hill’s 23rd novel featuring Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe finds those Yorkshire detectives trying to help a fellow cop, whose fiancée wants to locate her missing husband, believed dead. But a news-hungry reporter, a politician’s concerned secretary, and a self-protective entrepreneur make the case both more complicated and more deadly.
Week of May 18, 2009
The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith
It’s 1956, and as Nikita Khrushchev cements his control over the Soviet Union’s Communist Party and criticizes the brutality of late leader Joseph Stalin, beleaguered detective Leo Demidov (Child 44) struggles to rescue his daughter, who’s been kidnapped by a woman gang member whose priest husband Demidov long ago relegated to a gulag prison.
Week of May 11, 2009
A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell
After discovering a photo of her beloved but murdered brother, cross-dressing lounge singer Ernst, at Berlin police headquarters in 1931, newspaper reporter Hannah Vogel dives into an investigation complicated the appearance of Ernst’s alleged son and her sibling’s dangerous connections to prominent figures in the ascendant Nazi party.
Week of May 4, 2009
The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth
This final entry in Airth’s exceptional John Madden Trilogy (following River of Darkness and The Blood-Dimmed Tide) finds the former Scotland Yard inspector trying to figure out why an apparently innocent Polish refugee girl who’d been working on his farm was murdered in the middle of a World War II-era London blackout.
Week of April 27, 2009
Nobody Move by Denis Johnson
Rich in characters and clever dialogue, this homage to the American crime novel (originally serialized in Playboy) follows a fast-talking gambler with bad debts as he flees being beaten, only to hook up with an alcoholic stunner who’s being framed for embezzlement. Together, they’re going to steal millions -- if they can stay alive that long.
Week of April 20, 2009
The Language of Bees by Laurie R. King
Fifteen years after being introduced in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Mary Russell returns -- with her husband, Sherlock Holmes -- to both print and to Sussex, only to find a colony of bees gone missing and the Great Detective’s son in need of their investigative aid. But will Holmes, in the end, protect a killer for personal reasons?
Week of April 13, 2009
The Kill Call by Stephen Booth
The discovery of a man lying on a moor with his head crushed leads Peak District police detectives Diane Fry and Ben Cooper (Dying to Sin) into a mystery involving fox hunting and horse theft, dubious dealings by the victim, historical shenanigans, and a “plague village” that’s become the latest tourist draw.
Week of April 6, 2009
A Visible Darkness by Michael Gregorio
Early 19th-century Prussian investigator Hanno Stiffeniis is back, this time to stop the abductions and gruesome murders of young girls who’ve been recruited to collect valuable amber along the Baltic Coast -- a great source of wealth for French Emperor Napoleon, whose forces have overrun Stiffeniss’ homeland. An intelligent and consuming mystery.
Week of March 30, 2009
The Alchemy of Murder by Carol McCleary
Famous real-life “girl reporter” Nellie Bly is swept away from Manhattan to world’s fair-hosting Paris in 1889. Pursuing a killer with a scientific imagination, she’ll have to confront disease, anarchists and prostitutes in the City of Light, and seek aid from Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne to bring her ingenious quarry to ground.
Week of March 23, 2009
Sherlock Holmes in America edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower
Even after 121 years, interest in Holmes hasn’t flagged. This new collection, which features stories from Gillian Linscott, Loren D. Estleman, Bill Crider and others, sends the consulting detective and Dr. John H. Watson into trouble in New York, Washington, D.C., and such “sunny yet sinister cities” as San Francisco.
Week of March 16, 2009
Chinatown Angel by A.E. Roman
New York City P.I. Chico Santana, down on his luck and dumped by his wife, figures to score easy dough by finding an up-and-coming film star’s cousin. But his maid’s “suicide” and suspicions that he’s being paid to overlook some uncomfortable facts cause Santana to dig deeper to learn what’s really going on.
Week of March 9, 2009
The Ignorance of Blood by Robert Wilson
This fourth and final outing for Seville’s Javier Falcón finds the inspector investigating a terrorist attack, confronting Russian mobsters and big-time dealers in drugs and prostitution, and aiding a friend who’s being blackmailed by Islamic fanatics, while also helping his lover deal with personal tragedy. Will it all push Falcón too far?
Week of March 2, 2009
Black Noir: Mystery, Crime, and Suspense by African-American Writers edited by Otto Penzler
With its oddly redundant title, this collection proves that noir fiction hasn’t been the exclusive province of white authors. From the 19th-century work of Charles W. Chesnutt to more recent twisted-morality tales by Chester Himes, Edward P. Jones, Gary Phillips, Paula Woods and Walter Mosley, this book celebrates the genre’s rich diversity.
Week of February 23, 2009
Blood Money by Tom Bradby
British TV political director and author Bradby brings back Joe Quinn (previously seen in 2005’s The God of Chaos), this time as a New York City police detective working in the run-up to the 1929 stock market crash. Quinn’s trying to get the bottom of a series of Wall Street slayings, which may link to a cop on the take.
Week of February 16, 2009
Murder in Four Parts by Bill Crider
After being invited to join a barbershop chorus, Sheriff Dan Rhodes becomes involved in the murder of its director, who may also be an embezzler; the escape of an alligator, who has no interest in being recaptured; and the picketing of a law office by a man who’s forgotten his pants. A typically fun, snafu-filled Rhodes novel.
Week of February 9, 2009
Spade & Archer by Joe Gores
Edgar winner Gores, who in 1975 placed Dashiell Hammett in the midst of fictional trouble, now recruits that author’s most famous private eye in this prequel to The Maltese Falcon. Set in 1921, it finds Sam Spade contending with a stowaway, gold smugglers, murderers and his ex-lover’s new hubby, the ill-fated Miles Archer.
Week of February 2, 2009
Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan
Estranged from her longtime partner, Bill Smith, investigator Lydia Chin is working with her former mentor to locate some missing European jewelry, unearthed in China and transported to Manhattan. But the stakes are raised, and Smith reappears, after it’s learned that one of the world’s most sought-after gems is part of the stash.
Week of January 26, 2009
Death of a Pilgrim by David Dickinson
A young man’s unexpected survival in a New York hospital in 1905 spurs his father to escort their family on a pilgrimage to Spain, where the son’s name saint rests. However, as those pilgrims perish en route, former army intelligence officer Lord Francis Powerscourt is called in to investigate -- at risk to his own life.
Week of January 19, 2009
The Last Gig by Norman Green
Ex-teenage runaway turned “sleazy P.I.” Alessandra “Al” Martillo proves her mettle when she goes to work for an Irish mobster who’s convinced that one of his own people is setting him up for prosecution. Filled with real-sounding dope on organized crime and the music biz, this novel reads like a welcome new series debut.
Week of January 12, 2009
Darkness Rising by Frank Tallis
After the violent deaths of two ardent anti-Semites in 1903 Vienna, Detective Inspector Rheinhardt turns to psychoanalyst Max Liebermann to help quell their city’s rising tide of racism. But to accomplish that, the rational Liebermann -- already dealing with threats to his professional standing -- must also confront his own cultural background.
Week of January 5, 2009
In the Shadow of the Master edited by Michael Connelly
To help celebrate the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth (on January 19), Connelly has collected 16 of what he considers to be the master mystery writer’s best stories, along with 20 essays about Poe written by modern novelists including Stephen King, Lisa Scottoline, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, and Laurie R. King.
Week of December 29, 2008
A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd
Talented but tortured Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned to investigate the suspicious death of a financial advisor. Although well respected in London, the deceased was widely detested in his small hometown. It’s up to Rutledge to confirm his suspicions and stop a string of vengeful acts with historical roots.
Week of December 22, 2008
Bait by Nick Brownlee
A wounded former London cop, now operating a game fishing business outside Mombasa, Kenya, Jake Moore has enough trouble keeping his business afloat, without being called on by a detective named Daniel Jouma to help investigate a case of homicide and corruption that involves some of the people Moore knows best.
Week of December 16, 2008
Spider Season by John Morgan Wilson
Once-respected Los Angeles journalist Benjamin Justice has just published a memoir that recounts how his falsifying the sources for a Pulitzer Prize-winning series cost him immensely. But this unburdening exercise also unearths ghosts from his past, and Justice must work out their links to him, while fending off a too-inquisitive rival reporter.
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Week of December 8, 2008
Hey, There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) by Robert J. Randisi
In this fun third “Rat Pack Mystery,” Frank Sinatra asks casino pit boss and troubleshooter Eddie Gianelli to help Sammy Davis Jr. pay off a blackmailer. But a dead body greets Gianelli, when he goes to make the payoff -- with more corpses soon to follow. Buddy Hackett and Marilyn Monroe make cameos here.
Week of December 1, 2008
A Dead Man in Barcelona by Michael Pearce
Making his fifth appearance (after A Dead Man in Tangier), Special Branch officer Sandor Seymour heads to Barcelona, Spain, where he’s supposed to close the two-year-old case of an English businessman who was murdered behind prison bars. The lovely Chantale de Lissac returns to sort out the case’s personal and political complications.
Week of November 24, 2008
Fifty-to-One by Charles Ardai
In his company’s 50th pulpish release, Hard Case Crime’s Ardai imagines what might have happened had his enterprise been founded 50 years ago by an avaricious rogue -- a guy who incites mayhem and mix-ups by publishing an allegedly true account of a robbery at a Mob-operated nightclub. Includes an insert of all Hard Case covers.
Week of November 17, 2008
The Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
Charming mystery writer and burglar Charlie Howard (The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam) agrees -- against good judgment -- to instruct a complete novice in the fine art of breaking and entering, after which he finds himself caught up in one coincidence too many and in the pursuit of an apparently poorly guarded Picasso.
Week of November 10, 2008
Moriarty by John Gardner
More than 30 years after the release of his first two novels featuring Sherlock Holmes nemesis James Moriarty, the late John Gardner’s third installment appears. Moriarty has survived his tumble over Reichenbach Falls and returns to London to revitalize his empire -- only to find a rival seeking to usurp his criminal authority.
Week of November 3, 2008
The Outcast by Michael Walters
The third of Walters’ Inspector Nergui books finds Ulaan Bataar preparing to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Mongol Empire, at the same time as the Serious Crime Team’s boss, Doripalam, is challenged by a series of violent offenses. Meanwhile, somebody from Nergui’s past has come in search of revenge.
Week of October 27, 2008
Once Were Cops by Ken Bruen
Irish cop Michael O’Shea realizes his dream, when he’s sent to New York City as part of an international exchange program and is partnered with a hard-knuckled officer known as Kebar. But as this pair close in on a serial killer, their secrets and psychological weaknesses threaten to bring new troubles to everyone around them.
Week of October 20, 2008
Flesh House by Stuart MacBride
Detective Sergeant Logan McRae joins one of Aberdeen, Scotland’s largest manhunts after body parts show up in scattered locales. Were the killings done by a previous serial murderer, The Flesher, as Detective Inspector Insch is determined to prove (even if it destroys his career) ... or someone else? A grisly but gripping yarn.
Week of October 13, 2008
The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
Fictional worlds collide when L.A. attorney Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) defends Walter Elliott, a Hollywood studio exec accused of killing his spouse and her lover. Haller only took on Elliott as a client after his former lawyer was murdered -- a case that Connelly’s other series star, cop Harry Bosch, is determined to solve.
Week of October 6, 2008
A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré
Alarm bells go off in intelligence agencies when a young man in Hamburg, Germany -- a supposed Muslim medical student, Issa -- tries to claim the bank assets of a Soviet Red Army colonel. The legendary le Carré (The Mission Song) showcases the rivalries between spies who, in the post-9/11 world, should be working together.
Week of September 29, 2008
The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss
The author of A Conspiracy of Paper delivers this historical tale of Ethan Saunders, a disgraced former spy for General George Washington, who seeks redemption by locating his ex-fiancée’s missing husband. The political rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, and whiskey distillation on the Pennsylvania frontier all nicely complicate the plot.
Week of September 23, 2008
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
Although this isn’t strictly a crime novel, Lehane’s grand-scope historical tale certainly boasts a thriller-ish plot. It’s set in post-World War I Boston, where red-baiting, racism, and a looming police strike backdrop efforts by a young beat cop to infiltrate the anarchists and Bolsheviks inciting ire among that city’s poor immigrants.
Week of September 18, 2008
Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
Barrister Geoffrey Mason fails in his defense of an accused killer, only to have that client -- once he’s released on appeal -- turn around and threaten him. Finally, Mason is forced to defend a jockey accused of murdering a rival, a “simple” case he’s supposed to lose. But Mason realizes the jockey may be innocent, after all.
Week of September 8, 2008
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
In her third Jackson Brodie novel, Atkinson deftly juggles interconnected plots involving the young survivor of a knife attack, Joanna Mason; a train wreck 30 years later that almost kills P.I. Brodie; and his subsequent discovery that he has a wallet belonging to the recently released man who was convicted of killing Mason’s family.
Week of September 1, 2008
Blood Alone by James R. Benn
Making his third fictional appearance (after 2007’s The First Wave), Boston cop turned World War II soldier Billy Boyle lands in Sicily with a request that the local Mafia cease firing on U.S. troops. But his amnesia and resulting search for identity, coupled with a mobster’s assassination plot, complicate Boyle’s mission in exciting ways.
Week of August 25, 2008
The Black Tower by Louis Bayard
Further expanding his franchise on “celebrity mysteries,” Bayard (The Pale Blue Eye) recruits Eugène François Vidocq, the founder of Paris’ plainclothes police force, to tackle an engrossing 1818 case that involves a murdered man, a suspicious medical student, and the possible reappearance of France’s “deceased” Dauphin, Louis XVII. Marvelous stuff.
Week of August 18, 2008
The Soul Collector by Paul Johnston
Once struggling crime writer Matt Wells has survived an unhinged fan (in The Death List), rebuilt his life, and grown rich. But he’s still in trouble -- now running from a vengeful ex-lover and weighted with guilt after his best friend’s murder. Throw in devil worship and gang warfare, and you’ve got one dark, complicated yarn.
Week of August 11, 2008
Lie Down with the Devil by Linda Barnes
Boston gumshoe Carlotta Carlyle’s hopes of marrying her Mafia-connected lover go awry when he leaves the country and is suspected of a murder on Cape Cod. Meanwhile, Carlotta’s latest client has links to that same crime. When she turns up dead, and her name proves phony, Carlotta finds herself fitted neatly into a frame.
Week of July 28, 2008
The Drifter’s Wheel by Phillip DePoy
Returning to his Georgia hometown after years in trying academia, folklorist Fever Devilin is confronted by an armed man claiming to be more than 100 years old. When a corpse wearing the same clothes turns up the next morning, Devlin is thrown into a case rich with puzzles and murder, but quite bereft of answers.
Week of July 21, 2008
Paying for It by Tony Black
Down-and-out former Edinburgh journalist Gus Dury rises above his self-pity long enough to help investigate the torture murder of his best friend’s 20-year-old son. But the case will embroil him in political corruption and people-trafficking, and force Dury to confront a troubled past he’d have been happy to part company with forever.
Week of July 14, 2008
The Likeness by Tana French
This accomplished sequel to In the Woods (2007) finds Detective Cassie Maddox probing the murder of a woman who looks just like her, and was using one of Cassie’s undercover aliases. Stepping into the deceased’s life, Cassie hopes to flush out a killer -- if her emotional involvement in this case doesn’t sink it first.
Week of July 7, 2008
The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin
In his third outing, mid-19th-century Turkish eunuch investigator Yashim Togalu (aided by his Polish ambassador friend) must travel from Istanbul to Venice in search of a stolen painting by Filippo Bellini. The grand canals of Venice turn out to be anything but peaceful, though, as Yashim discovers what a deadly business art can be.
Week of June 30, 2008
The Last Embrace by Denise Hamilton
Inspired by the disappearance of actress Jean Spangler, Hamilton’s tale finds spy Lily Kessler coming to Los Angeles in 1949 to locate her late fiancé’s missing starlet sister, who soon turns up dead. Digging into the girl’s life, Lily finds gangsters, nightclub denizens of every odd stripe, and a most peculiar special-effects wizard.
Week of June 16, 2008
A Prisoner of Memory edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg
In addition to some excellent short stories by Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Patricia Abbott, Dick Lochte, and Robert S. Levinson (whose tale lent the anthology its title), this “year’s finest” collection includes Jon L. Breen’s traditional wrap-up of genre developments and Francis M. Nevins’ brief but fine ode to the late Edward D. Hoch.
Week of June 16, 2008
Mind’s Eye by Håkan Nesser
Two other novels in the Inspector Van Veeteren series have already been translated into English, but this was the first one written (in 1993). It finds the Swedish investigator delving further into the “open-and-shut case” of a drunken husband who, after supposedly killing his wife, is himself murdered in a hospital ward.
Week of June 9, 2008
In the Heat by Ian Vasquez
This Belize-set thriller centers around a beloved boxer, Miles Young, who agrees -- in exchange for a spot on a premium fight card -- to look for a missing woman who’s run off with the son of an ex-chief of police. But Young realizes only too late how many other people, with their own dark agendas, have a stake in this same case.
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