The Late Show, by Michael Connelly

No writer captures angst and mystery as well as Michael Connelly. In this new series, Connelly introduces a new protagonist, Detective Renee Ballard. Like Harry Bosch, the key figure in dozens of Connelly’s previous novels, Ballard is a closed book that we get to understand only a tiny bit at a time.

An LAPD detective, expelled from the elite Robbery Homicide Division (RHD) after filing a sexual harassment complaint against her supervisory lieutenant, Ballard is now on the late shift in the Hollywood Division, called “The Late Show.” Through Ballard, Connelly ably depicts the misogyny of the old boys club mentality that still exists in the LAPD, without creating melodram

We learn that Ballard is homeless except for the two days a month she lives with her Hawaiian grandmother, Tutu, 90 miles away. The other days she sleeps at a local hotel, or in a tent on the beach after paddle boarding. The only being she lets near her heart, besides Tutu, is her dog Lola, who spends most of her nights at a dog care facility.

When a Trans woman is brutally attacked, Ballard is the only detective who cares enough to investigate, ultimately bringing the attacker to justice while almost losing her own life. Similarly, after Ballard’s former RHD partner is murdered while investigating a shocking six person massacre at a local club, Ballard is the only detective able to unravel the corruption that leads back to the LAPD.

This is a great read that I was not able to put down until the end. Five stars.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Little, Brown and Company
Copyright © 2017 by Hieronymus, Inc.

Malice in Maggody, by Joan Hess

Before Stephanie Plum there was Arly Hanks, chief of police in the town of Maggody, Arkansas, population 755. Licking her wounds from a divorce and loss of her marital New York City penthouse, Hanks has returned to her roots, where her mother Ruby Bee owns the local diner and motel, and where everybody in town has a story so strange only Joan Hess can tell it in this reprint of her 1987 novel.

At 34, Hanks spends her days carving a duck from a block of wood and dealing with a police force of two, one of which is desperate to join the state police. When the town council and Mayor Jim Bob kidnap an EPA bureaucrat to stop a new law that will pollute the town’s creek, Hanks is the last to know, even when it turns out her mother is part of the operation. As Hanks digs deeper into the kidnapping, and an associated tragic murder, we meet some of the most interesting and nutty characters ever to step out of a novel, with nary a computer, tablet or cellphone in sight.

Sometimes a trip to Maggody, where like a Sue Grafton novel, the 21st Century is still years in the future, is necessary in order to understand that in our recent past, friendship and family, even laced with outrageous backwoods eccentricity, were more important than anything else. An importance Chief Hanks (and Joan Hess) is not afraid to acknowledge.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

Mischief in Maggody, by Joan Hess

In her second Arly Hanks mystery, Joan Hess introduces us to the seamier underbelly of Maggody, Arkansas, population 755. After mountain woman/part-time hooker/bootlegger, Robin Buchanon disappears, her four older kids are taken in by the Mayor’s wife (known as “Mizzoner”) and her baby is taken in by Arly’s mother, Ruby Bee. Of course, since none of the children know how to read, or keep clean, or how to live in any dwelling built after 1900 in a place not in the middle of an unpopulated mountain, (Dogpatch from the L’il Abner comics is modern compared to their cabin), their antics cause Mizzoner to have a nervous breakdown while the men of Maggody worry that they may be exposed as one of kids’ “pappys.”

After Hanks finds Robin’s body alongside a booby-trapped marijuana patch, she sets out to find the murderers. Meanwhile, her not-all-there police department janitor, declares himself a “deputy,” steals the sheriff’s jeep and disappears into the mountains with his not-all-there girlfriend, claiming he will solve the mystery. Not to be outdone in the outrageous acts department, Ruby Bee manages to lose the baby; the new-in-town psychic, Madame Celeste, manages to create hysteria with her predictions; and a bunch of hippies, also new-in-town, generate their own brand of chaos by meditating in the nude.

Entering the world of Arly Hanks is always a treat, and it’s comforting to know there are at least fourteen more novels in the series. Thank you Joan Hess!

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

The English Wife by Lauren Willig

Illegitimate children, wealthy British sons and cousins, snobby New Yorkers who consider the Vanderbilts the tainted nouveau riche, unsolved murders, “The English Wife” has it all, including the growing friendship between a wealthy daughter and a poor journalist who has pulled himself up from a childhood on the streets. Slightly gothic, the novel unrolls fascinating plots within plots within plots, and it definitely does not allow any reader to walk away bored. I enjoyed this complicated book, and I want to know more about those characters left standing at the end.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

Fire and Ashes (Death Investigator Angela Richman Book 2), by Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets' s new "Death Investigator" series is a world apart from her "Dead-End Job" and " Mystery Shopper" mysteries. While the protagonists in those novels lead problematic lives (including hiding from court orders by staying off the grid), Viets's new Angela Richman novels are interestingly darker. In both the first book in the series, "Brain Storm," and this second novel, Viets successfully depicts a physically and emotionally flawed stroke survivor who investigates often gruesome deaths while grieving for a recently deceased husband. In addition, although not as stark as "Brain Storm," "Fire and Ashes" pulls no punches when describing the white privilege demanded by the wealthy residents in Angela Richman's town of Chouteau Forest, Missouri.

Richman, back to investigating deaths after recovering from six strokes and a coma, is tasked with investigating the deaths of a wealthy, but grubby sexist-70 year old, and a seventeen year old heroin user. In both cases, in order to find the truth, Richman must push back against assumptions of guilt made by the police, prosecutor, and leaders of society, based on bigotry concerning local Mexican-Americans.

Viets's mastery of criminal forensic science is impressive, as is her skillful ability to give voice to the characters depicted. Several years ago, her narrative concerning overt law enforcement and prosecutorial bigotry probably would have been viewed as unrealistic and over the top. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said today.

Without a doubt, this book should be at the top of summer reading lists.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

* Print Length: 288 pages
* Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1477848800
* Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (July 25, 2017)
* Publication Date: July 25, 2017
* Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Take It to the Grave, Part 1 of 6: A tense and addictive psychological thriller, by Zoe Carter

Zoe Carter tantalizes us with the first part of her six part thriller series. Sarah is living every woman's alleged fantasy life with a gorgeous, wealthy husband, a healthy, beautiful baby boy, and a house in East Hampton, Long Island. Except it's not. The growing stench of backstabbing neighbors, marital infidelity, a demanding, cruel mother-in-law, and eating disorders permeate Sarah's life. Pushed by her mother-in-law to invite her family to her son's christening, Sarah reluctantly contacts her estranged sister, Maisey, thereby adding buried dark family secrets to her already troubled life.

Carter knows how to write and how to keep her readers glued to the page. Indeed, Part 1 of "Take it to the Grave" is such an exhilarating, roller coaster of a ride, it's hard to imagine a reader not grabbing the next installment in the series.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

* Print Length: 64 pages
* Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases (June 1, 2017)
* Publication Date: June 15, 2017
* Sold by: Harlequin Digital Sales Corp

The Sound of Rain, by Gregg Olsen

When a slot machine hits a jackpot at the Snoqualmie Casino, in Washington State, it makes the sound of rain. The poetry of the title and the musical sound of the jackpot on her favorite slot machine, frames Detective Nicole Foster's life. A compulsive gambler, Foster must fight the dark side of a gambling addiction, which constantly sinks its claws into her every waking moment

When three year old, Kelsey Chase, is kidnapped from a car outside of a Target store, while her mother and five year old brother are shopping, Foster and her partner, Detective Danny Ford, are assigned to find the little girl. When Kelsey turns up murdered, Foster must battle her addiction and wade into a deep muck of deception and psychotic betrayal that engulfs the murder, and her professional and personal life at every level.

Gregg Olsen skillfully creates a complex, absorbing plot while giving believable voices to both his male and female characters, a talent many authors lack. "The Sound of Rain" captures you emotionally and intellectually, and does not let you go until you finish the book. Five stars.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

* Print Length: 350 pages
* Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (December 13, 2016)
* Publication Date: December 13, 2016
* Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Silent Child, by Sarah A. Denzil

Sarah Denzil has written a fast-paced thriller that challenges what we believe about English village life. Using crisp, focused writing that avoids unnecessary verbiage and tiresome cliches, Denzil takes us on a rollercoaster ride that is impossible to stop until it reaches the end. The protagonist, Emma, is a 24 year old mother with a happy life. Her beloved son, six year old, Aiden, is a lively, bright little boy, and, his father, her high school boyfriend Rob, lives nearby. Emma thinks she knows everyone in her tiny, northern English village and she feels safe.

When a storm hits the area, the local Ouse River overflows. Aiden, for some unknown reason, leaves the safety of his school and drowns. To lose any child is a parent's worst fear, and Emma's life becomes an almost unbearable nightmare. Moreover, she has no closure because her boy's body has never been found. When Emma's parents are killed in an auto crash four years later, Emma cannot bear to live. Rob has left, and she has no family. During a suicide attempt, Emma is saved by Jake Hewitt, an art teacher ten years her senior. Fast forward six years, Emma is married to Jake and eight months pregnant. On her last day of work, she receives a call from the police detective who had investigated Aiden's death. He tells her that Aiden has been found alive and is in a local hospital, but he is mute and cannot tell them where he has been.

Although this book was a page turner that was hard to put down, Denzil opens several plot lines that seem to appear at random and are not closed. Nonetheless, Denzil successfully rips the masks off Emma's idyllic village and its inhabitants, exposing such evil and viciousness it is almost impossible to believe. I give this book four stars, and I recommend that any lover of absorbing, non-cozy English village mysteries read this book.

* Print Length: 417 pages
* Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
* Publication Date: January 22, 2017
* Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

The Obsession, by Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts never disappoints. Naomi Bowes was the daughter of the most prolific, gruesome serial murderer of the 21st century. She didn't know it, however, until she was 12 and saved one of his victims. As a result of her actions, her father's killing spree ended and he was sent to prison for life. Seventeen years later, Naomi ends a nomadic existence and settles down in the small town of Sunrise Cove. She has become a successful and very gifted photographer. All is going well for her until the killings, identical to her father's, begin. Roberts is a wonderful storyteller who brings both exqusite character development and fascinating plot to her novels, and this novel proves it. Romance, art, mystery and the joy of good friends are all part of "The Obsession," I could not put it down.

Print Length: 464 pages
Publisher: Berkley (April 12, 2016)
Publication Date: April 12, 2016
Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC

When, by Victoria Laurie

Maddie is 16 and has an incredible gift. She knows the date a person will die by reading numbers on their forehead that only she can see. When Maddie was much younger, her policeman father died in a shootout with a drug gang. Unable to warn him because at that time she didn't understand the numbers she saw on his head, Maddie has felt guilty ever since and her mother has drowned herself in bottles of vodka. Unable to hold onto a job, she and Maddie have relied on funds provided by her uncle Donny, an attorney. In order to get extra money to cover her vodka needs, her mother has hired Maddie out for "death date" readings. When one of Maddie's clients freaks out at the death date assigned her son, and her son is then murdered on that date, Maddie's world comes crashing down.

Victoria Laurie's writing is clear, crisp, focused and appropriate for high school age and older.

* Age Range: 12 - 17 years
* Grade Level: 7 - 12
* Paperback: 336 pages
* Publisher: Disney-Hyperion; Reprint edition (September 6, 2016)

The Ripper's Shadow: A Victorian Mystery, by Laura Joh Rowland

Laura Joh Rowland skillfully weaves facts with fiction in her convincing take on the Jack the Ripper murders. As her tale unfolds, she also demonstrates that the 21st century holds no monopoly on vicious killers or on odd-sock families created not by blood but by warm friendship.

Sarah Bain is thirty-something and unmarried, which in the London of 1888, means she is considered a spinster. After her father died, Sarah kept his photography business going in the heart of the East End of London. Photography has become both her profession and her life, and her views of the world are often through the lens of her camera.

Running a business in Victorian times was extraordinarily difficult for a single woman, and even more difficult for Sarah because her late mother convinced her that everyone will betray her. Friendless, with no family, and desperately needing funds to stay in business, Sarah agrees to a plan proposed by local prostitutes to photograph them in various states of undress and then split the profits from the sale of the photos. To Sarah's surprise, these ladies slowly befriend her. When Sarah discovers that two of the victims of a brutal murderer, labeled "the Ripper," are her ladies, she desperately sets out to uncover the murderer and save her remaining friends.

Along the way, Sarah casts off the lonely paranoia instilled by her dead mother as she is befriended by the Lipskys, Russian Jewish immigrants grieving for a lost child, Hugh, an aristocrat who relies on Sarah to keep his sexual orientation secret, Mick, a young, street-wise boy with no home or parents, and Catherine, one of her photography models who is surprisingly naive. Together this odd crew forms an equally odd family as they seek the murderer.

The premise of "The Ripper's Shadow" is fascinating: a female photographer in late Victoria London on the trail of the most famous serial killer in history. It is the iconoclastic characters, however, and their interactions with each other, that sets this novel apart from other Victorian era mysteries.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (January 10, 2017)
Publication Date: January 10, 2017
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Witch Miss Seeton, A Miss Seeton Mystery (Book 3), by Heron Carvic

Few writers have been able to capture the dynamic and humor of a small village in rural England as well as Heron Carvic. In his skillful hands, Miss Seeton's village, Plummergen, comes to life with all of its warmth and hysterical lunacy.

In this third book of the series, retired art teacher and sometime sleuth, Miss Seeton, unknowingly has caused the village busybodies to conclude that she is practicing witchcraft, which practice, coincidentally is on the rise in England. More than that, however, the police are concerned over a fraudulent but growing cult called Nuscience, which claims, among other things, that true believers can travel to other planets at will.

Scotland Yard Superintendent Delphick, known as the Oracle, wants to shut down this cult, and he suspects that the rise of witchcraft and the growth of Nuscience are connected. He believes that only Miss Seeton, because of her unrelenting belief in the goodness of others, and her uncanny ability to suss out the truth in her drawings, can determine the true intent of the cult.

After he sends Miss Seeton to a Nuscience event to take notes and report back, the head of the cult, called the Master, orders his young male followers to steal Miss Seeton's notes as she leaves the meeting. But the Master has not counted on Miss Seeton's famous umbrella, which once stopped a murderer. As the young men descend on her, Miss Seeton believes her purse is being pulled by the exiting crowd and, unwittingly, she dispatches her umbrella. As her victims nurse broken noses and bruised ribs, Miss Seeton innocently wanders away, purse in hand.

Despite the humorous situations she often finds herself in, Carvic never allows his reader to believe that Miss Seeton is truly dotty. Instead, Miss Seeton often is depicted as the only person able to see the truth, including the true talent, of those around her, and it is her naive but always insightful honesty that makes the Miss Seeton novels so attractive and long-lived.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

Print Length: 272 pages
Publisher: Farrago; 3 edition (June 2, 2016)
Publication Date: June 2, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

The Miss Silver Mysteries: Grey Mask, The Case Is Closed, and Lonesome Road, by Patricia Wentworth (1878–1961)

In this newly re-published collection of three of her earliest novels, Patricia Wentworth transports us to the very stylish British Art Deco world of the 1920s and 1930s, where the women are elegant and worried, and the men are monsters, or exceedingly dreary, or handsome heroes. One of the leading writers of the Golden Age of detective fiction, Wentworth draws a clear line between evil and good, and she makes sure that we know that her "private enquiry agent," retired governess Miss Maud Silver, is no innocent, sweet old lady. Miss Silver has looked evil in the eye, and prevailed, and she has been changed by it.

In her first novel, "The Grey Mask," published in 1928, Charles Moray returns from a self-imposed four-year exile upon learning of his father's death. His first night back, he stumbles upon a strange meeting of conspirators taking place in his vacant family home. He doesn't summon the police because his former fiancee, Margaret Langton, is at the meeting, the same woman whose rejection of him caused his long absence. Alarmed at the dangerous, rough company she appeared to be involved with, Moray seeks out the elderly Maude Silver, a female sleuth famous for her terrifying ability to gather information and ferret out falsehoods.

In "The Case is Closed," first published in 1937, Wentworth takes on an unjust murder conviction. Gregory Grey has been convicted of murdering his uncle and sent to prison for 50 years. His wife Marion has lost the baby she was carrying and is living a frozen, colorless, soulless life, working as a "mannequin" modeling chic dresses, while she grieves for her lost marriage, husband and baby. Her younger cousin Helen is determined to seek justice for Gregory and Marion. Helen's ex-fiancee, Captain Henry Cunningham, is worried about Helen's activities and, on the recommendation of his distant cousin, Charles Moray (of "The Grey Mask" mystery), he hires Maude Silver to investigate. As Helen and Miss Silver close in on the truth, they must travel in a London, an Edinburgh and on rural country lanes that no longer exist in reality but will forever exist in Wentworth's mysteries.

In the third mystery, "Lonesome Road," first published in 1939, unmarried heiress Rachel Treherne seeks out Miss Silver because someone is trying to kill her. The likely suspects are her family members who spend much time at her lonely mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea. A wealthy woman who inherited much from her father, Treherne is also tasked with finding the heirs of his former business partner, and rectifying an old wrong by giving them a portion of her wealth. This beautifully written mystery climaxes in a breath-taking, terror-filled scene where Miss Silver unmasks the would-be murderer.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 701 pages
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller (June 28, 2016)
Publication Date: June 28, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

(Undated photo of Patricia Wentworth)

In Sunlight or In Shadow, Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, edited by Lawrence Block

In this marvelous collection of Noir short stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper, Lawrence Block lets lose the creative genius of some of the top authors of 2016, including, but not limited to, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Childs, and Michael Connelly.

In Lee Childs's "The Truth About What Happened," an FBI agent, racing against the looming era of Joe McCarthy, tells the story of an elderly gentlemen, his young wife and youngish mother-in-law. Inspired by Hopper's 1943, painting, "Hotel Lobby," it's hard not be awed by Childs's genius.

In "Girlie Show," based on Hopper's 1941, painting of the same name, Megan Abbott crafts an exquisite story, set in the 1940s, of an aging wife with still-beautiful breasts and her artistic, egocentric, blind-to-her-charms, husband. Only after the wife is brought back to life, and self-esteem, by friendship with a red-haired stripper, does the thick fog lift that had been obscuring the despair-drenched marital relationship.

In "The Story of Caroline," after 38 years of marriage, Richard is dying, and Grace is remembering the baby she gave up when she was 16. Hannah, a 40 year old Hospice nurse who was adopted at birth, is there to give Grace respite in Richard's last days. As Grace and Hannah deal with his looming death, they reveal secrets to each other. Hopper's "Summer Evening" from 1947, brimming with the longing and hope of young love, and the look and feel of a hot summer's night, clearly inspired Jill D. Block; her writing is magnificent.

This book proves that Noir is not dead. It is brilliant, it is inspired, and it is filled with short stories that will haunt you.

Print Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books (December 6, 2016)
Publication Date: December 6, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

(In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided me with an advance copy of the book via NetGalley.)

The Agency 1: A Spy in the House, by Y.S. Lee

Y.S. Lee has written an intriguing, delightful novel about an all female investigative agency in Victorian London of the 1850s that selects only the most intelligent, independent girls. The girls, as exemplified by Mary Quinn in this first installment of the series, are found in the most desperately poor parts of London. Quinn was not only poor, 12 years old, and an orphan when found, she also had been sentenced to hang for the crime of house breaking. After five years of intensive education at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls, Quinn is invited to join the agency and placed in a wealthy home as companion to the daughter of the house so that she could investigate the shady dealings of the father. Her spirit and intelligence are tested as she confronts not only the corrupt undercurrent of the father's business, but also her own past. This was an excellent read and I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

Series: The Agency (Book 1)
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Candlewick; 1 edition (March 9, 2010)

As Time Goes By, By Mary Higgins Clark

As always, Mary Higgins Clark tells an absorbing tale of mystery, murder and long-lost relatives. Betsy Grant's husband has been murdered. At one time a wealthy, successful orthopedic specialist, Dr. Grant has been suffering from early on-set Alzheimer's disease. His wife has patiently and lovingly cared for him for years, but after a birthday dinner, he is found dead, with his skull fractured. Betsy Grant is now on trial for his murder, and it does not look good for her. Her stepson Alan Grant is desperate for money and cannot wait until Betsy is convicted and his father's estate goes only to him.

At the same time, Delaney Wright, a rising star news reporter for a big television station, and the reporter covering Betsy's trial, is trying to find her birth mother. Friends Alvirah and Willy, amateur investigators, have agreed to help her.

As any Clark reader will tell you, it is impossible to stop reading one of her novels once you start. That goes for this novel too

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 5, 2016)
Language: English

Transient City, by Ali Onia

Author Ali Onia successfully blends mid-century noir with dystopian-science fiction in this exciting new mystery novel. Downtrodden, broke and friendless, Victor Stromboli is the memory man in Transient City, an increasingly decrepit, crime-ridden city owned by the Agamemnon corporation on the planet Lodan. Like every city on the planet, Transient City moves from one mineral deposit to the next on huge treads. Above the treads, the city's dark and maze-like streets are breeding grounds for murder and thievery.

Stromboli's eidetic memory means he relives his traumatic memories often, such as the death of his mother in an arson fire when he was young. His memory is used by the Security Bureau police to capture every sight, smell and sound in a crime scene. As the crime rate soars, hard boiled detective McGivern brings Stromboli under his aegis to help solve a string of puzzling murders and disappearances. One of the disappearance cases leads Stromboli to Kathy Whittaker, a woman in distress and his first love.

Bureaucracy, treachery, corruption, bribery, murder- all exist in Transient City, and all seem to be blocking Stromboli's efforts to find the mastermind behind the growing number of murders before Kathy becomes the next victim.

Transient City's "Brave New World" dystopia and Raymond Chandler-like noir-grittiness leap off the page. This is a good read; I was sorry to see it end. Five stars.

(In exchange for an honest review, I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: Bundoran Press Publishing (April 5, 2016)
Language: English

Honor Bound (The Montana Hamiltons), By B.J. Daniels

In her sixth Montana Hamiltons' novel, B.J. Daniels takes us back to the small town of Beartooth, Montana. As with most small towns, nothing important ever happens here, except that local rancher, and Senator, Buckmaster Hamilton is about to win the U.S. presidency by a landslide; his wife, Sarah, missing for 22 years, and presumed dead, has miraculously re-appeared with no memory of the last two decades; and their one remaining unmarried daughter, Ainsley, is unknowingly working with jewel thieves while being stalked by a psychopath.

In the meantime, despite having no memory of it, Sarah is terrified that she may have been part of an underground terrorist organization which has threatened her and her family; and sensible 34 year old Ainsley has a virginity problem and a love/hate relationship with Sawyer, a gorgeous FBI agent on a mission to save her from her stalker.

Daniels never lets us down. Her novels grab us, entertain us, and let us go only when she is finished telling her story. If you are in need of a restful evening with an absorbing novel, get a copy of "Honor Bound," and a cup of cocoa and enjoy.

Print Length: 384 pages
Publisher: HQN Books (November 1, 2016)
Publication Date: October 18, 2016
Sold by: Harlequin Digital Sales Corp.

A Christmas Message, by Anne Perry

Anne Perry's "A Christmas Message" reaffirmed why I love her books. Her ability to weave romance, mystery, history and the spiritual in an intelligent absorbing narrative is unsurpassed. She is unafraid to depict historical events that other authors avoid, and her characters age. Since I also age, it is refreshing to find protagonists on the far side of 40.

Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould and her husband of two years, Victor Narraway, are celebrating a cold Christmas in 1900 Palestine. A mysterious new acquaintance, an old man with powerful stories, is murdered after sharing a dinner with the couple. Shortly after finding his body, Narraway finds a note with a scrap of parchment that the old man had secretly placed in his coat. The note exhorts him to be at the "House of Bread" in Jerusalem on Christmas Eve. Although neither Vespasia or Narraway are particularly religious, they both know this is a message that cannot be ignored. As they make their way to Jerusalem by train, they are joined by Benedict, a kind man, with little memory, who somehow knows their mission but worries that a very dark character will stop them, just as this dark character has stopped the old man. Benedict also explains that in Hebrew, "House of Bread" is "Beit Lechem" or Bethlehem.

As I read this book, I felt the cold of long-ago Jaffa, I smelled the spices of the middle east bazaar, and experienced the lonely isolation of the desert at night. Perry writes that: "The world is full of interest, and beauty. The span of one life offers barely a taste of it: just sufficient to know that it is infinitely precious." This is true, and the world is even more interesting and more beautiful when viewed through a Perry novel like "A Christmas Message."

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 176 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (November 1, 2016)
Publication Date: November 1, 2016
Sold by: Random House LLC

Echo (A Kate Redman Mystery: Book 6) (The Kate Redman Mysteries), by Celina Grace

"Echo," the sixth Kate Redman novel, catapults author Celina Grace into the same realm as Margaret Maron, and Deborah Crombie. In Echo, the slight bumps and snags of Grace's earlier portrayals of Redman are gone. Redman's voice is now clearly heard. She is a tough police officer with a strong moral compass, a struggling, conflicted daughter, and a single woman trying to combine career and relationships.

The plot took my breath away. A mudslide uncovers the remains of a young woman who died forty years ago. The hunt for this woman's identity and the circumstances of her death bring modern forensic technology to an old crime. Along the way, the conscious, deliberate failure of certain social and community leaders to protect young women placed under their care during the 70s and 80s is exposed. Their crimes are heinous. The still raw wounds of the surviving victims of these crimes haunt Redman, especially when the crimes impact her family and threaten to derail her career.

The voices of the victims of past crimes against children echo today in the halls of churches, schools, homes and sports arenas. Law enforcement has only just started to bring justice to these victims. Echo reminds us that, although most of the echoes of the voices of victims of long ignored crimes still have not been heard, there are brave individuals fighting to change that. I highly recommend Echo, I could not put the book down. If you have not read the other five Kate Redman books, read them as well. You will not be disappointed.

Print Length: 174 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Isaro Publishing Limited (April 19, 2015)
Publication Date: April 19, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC