Killer in the Choir
Small town life in Fettering will never be boring as long as there may be a Killer in the Choir. Leonard, a retired and rich industrialist, is dead. Did he fall down the stairs or was he pushed? His daughter, Alice, thinks her stepmother, Heather, did it for money. AfterContinue Reading
Chestnut Man
A current Danish murder is entwined with an earlier closed case by a child’s Chestnut Man. Almost a year ago, a girl named Kristine disappeared. Her mother, Rosa, is high up in Danish politics. Police find a mentally ill man who confesses to the crime and is quickly convicted. However,Continue Reading
Passengers
Eight Passengers are stuck in separate driverless cars when a hacker takes control. Only one will survive in this cat-and-mouse thriller. The eight people trapped include a pregnant woman, an aging actress, a married couple, an abused Indian housewife, an illegal immigrant, a disabled war hero, and a man withContinue Reading
Texts from Mittens
Who doesn’t enjoy getting Texts from Mittens? Mittens is a typical cat. He has a healthy obsession with boxes and shampoo caps. His girlfriend, Fiona, thinks he is romantic when he suggests her coming up to his cat condo to rub their faces on an old sock together. He suspectsContinue Reading
The Missing Ones
The Missing Ones are young children missing from a touristy island in Maine. Damaged heroine Hester Thursby is unwilling dragged into the case by a cryptic text by long-missing best friend Daphne. In the excellent Little Comfort (here is my 5-star review), the first book in this series, three-year-old KateContinue Reading
Girl on the Porch
Where and who did the Girl on the Porch flee from and where is she now? Angie and Frank Urban were awoken by their doorbell frantically ringing at 3:30 a.m. By the time Frank opened the door, their porch was empty. The next day, their neighbors Sarah and Kenny checkedContinue Reading
Wonton Terror
There is Wonton Terror when the Wonton on Wheels food truck explodes at the first Asian Night Market in Cleveland. Lana Lee is now managing her parent’s restaurant, the Ho-Lee Noodle House. While promoting the restaurant at Market night, her parent’s old friend, Ronnie, is killed in the explosion. WhenContinue Reading
Truth Behind the Lie
The suspenseful Swedish thriller, The Truth Behind the Lie, tells the story of shady former journalist Kouplan’s search for missing child Julia. Kouplan, an Iranian illegal resident in Stockholm, places this ad on Swedish Craig’s List. “Private detective. If the police can’t help, call me!” The only response is fromContinue Reading
Tin Badges
Retired NYPD Detective Tank Rizzo is pulled back into duty to solve cold cases with a bunch of misfit (and criminal) friends in the action-filled police procedural, Tin Badges. There are two parallel stories. The first is a (retired) police procedural of how Tank chases the scummy drug kingpin, Gonzo.Continue Reading
End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World
A non-religious and well-researched look at what is most likely to kill all of mankind is in the End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World. There are eight threats to mankind’s continued existence described within this book: Asteroid Volcano Nuclear Bombs Climate Change Disease Biotechnology ArtificialContinue Reading
Whisper Man
Frank Carter, the Whisper Man, has been in prison twenty years for kidnapping and murdering five young boys in rural Featherbank. His m.o. was whispering through each child’s window before luring them to their death. And now the whispering has begun again… Did Frank have an accomplice all those yearsContinue Reading
The Murder List
Jack is a defense attorney in Boston. As an experienced litigator, he is on The Murder List. The list is a list of attorneys from which the state picks the person to defend accused murderers. Rachel is married to Jack. She is also a third-year law student scheduled to internContinue Reading
The Warehouse
A thinly, really thinly, veiled stab at Amazon is located in The Warehouse. The Black Friday Massacres drive people to shop increasingly online. The Cloud (ahem, Amazon) picks up the slack and becomes the world’s biggest employer. It opens modern factory towns, called MotherClouds, worldwide where workers use their moneyContinue Reading
American Magic
What if magic is real? But kept hidden by a group as mysterious, and rich, as the Illuminati? When one member turns rogue, the lid is off American Magic. Okay, I admit it, the plot sounds lame—except when you are actually reading it. The author manages to do a DanContinue Reading
Polygamy: An Early American History
Beginning with the Spanish Franciscan priests attempting to baptize Native Americans, Polygamy: An Early American History tours polygamist practices in the New World. Not just interested in the what, the author looks into the underlying reasons for the popularity of multi-wife families. In the 1600s, wars cut down many NativeContinue Reading
Savage Appetites
Psychological archetypes and crime fiction are melded in the true crime tales presented in Savage Appetites. The four tales here describe the mother of forensic science, who did not have a formal scientific background. Another tale describes a person fascinated by the Manson cult’s murder of Sharon Tate. The thirdContinue Reading