The s-l-o-w pacing of The Black Swan Mystery was common when it was written especially because it was serialized first. The detective and his assistant don’t even appear until the halfway point of the book. But the tempo and all the hard-to-remember character & location names made this book aContinue Reading
Cold Burn is as much ripped from the headlines as any book I’ve ever read. It has extinct animal revivals, detrimental climate change effects, an unknown fatal disease killing everyone in its path, a malevolent rogue billionaire, and Russian hoods. The plot feels like a mix of the series writtenContinue Reading
A New Orleans detective decides to take the law into her own hands, but someone else beats her to it in We Don’t Talk About Emma. I look forward to the unusual plots of J.D. Barker’s horror books. However, my favorite genre is mystery. When I saw Mr. Barker branchingContinue Reading
Shades of Mercy is perfect for fans of Longmire and Joe Pickett, while they wait for the next book to be released in those series. Sheriff Beck is investigating a hacked military drone in rural Nevada. His county has a whole lot of land and a dearth of people, includingContinue Reading
Picture an alternate world where vampires are not only integrated into society, but protected as a racial minority. However, just because they are protected doesn’t mean that everyone has accepted them. In The Gathering, a young man has been killed in a manner implicating the local vampire colony. But areContinue Reading
Another year, another great buddy police/psychologist procedural for Milo and Alex. I look forward to reading this series and The Ghost Orchid is another great entry. Two naked bodies are found murdered in a middle-class backyard in the LA adjacent and mega-wealthy Bel Air enclave. Which one was the intendedContinue Reading
Tired of feeling bored with thrillers billed as mysteries where the mysteries are no challenge to your armchair detective skills? Want to read a true police procedural where every detail of the plodding police work is laid out? Get a copy of The Final Curtain, the last book of theContinue Reading
The Golden Gate is a historical hard-boiled police procedural novel that includes family drama and addresses a lot of buzzy topics like politics, racism, passing, and how the rich are treated differently. The story is set in 1944 in a fashionable hotel where a politician is murdered but has flashbacksContinue Reading
Aisling Cooley is trying to find her father through a DNA website in the latest British police procedural in the DCI Jonas Sheens series. The detectives are searching for a local serial killer when the crime scene DNA is linked to Aisley’s DNA. Could Aisley’s long-lost father be the killer?Continue Reading
Ali Reynolds’ husband B. is almost killed when traveling to the airport to attend a London business conference. The police are sure it was a planned hit. But was B. the intended victim or was he just Collateral Damage in the attempted murder of his hired driver? Disgraced ex-cop FrankContinue Reading
Psychologist Alex Delaware and police detective Milo Sturgis are investigating another bizarre death in the Los Angeles sunshine in Unnatural History. A troubled trust funded photographer is murdered in his bed. Could his murderer be a family member looking to increase their chunk of the family’s future inheritance? Or wasContinue Reading
A seemingly drunk man staggers onto a lonely Tokyo bridge at night and collapses. A policeman checks on him and is surprised to find that A Death in Tokyo has occurred. The man is not drunk but instead has been stabbed to death. The police investigate and are suspicious ofContinue Reading
Sheriff Sunshine Vicram is still trying to break up a local moonshine gang while in love with its boss. It’s unfortunate that her fixation is causing her to overpour tequila for herself leading to A Hard Day for a Hangover. A Hard Day for a Hangover is not a standaloneContinue Reading
Ten-year-old Lukas is The Collector of images that looked like faces. He is also missing. Detective Erik Schafer is investigating but the clues have led to nothing. Heloise is Schafer’s friend but also an investigative journalist. It’s Copenhagen in February. A young boy wouldn’t last long in the frozen streets.Continue Reading
It’s always fun to be on a ride-a-long with Virgil Flowers and Lucas Davenport and the villains are even wilder in Righteous Prey. The Five, a pack of bitcoin billionaires with too much time (and money) on their hands, are killing “bad people” across the United States. When the thirdContinue Reading
In The Binding Room, even the most upstanding people may have a secret or two hiding in their closets. Pastor Caleb is the leader of the popular church he named after himself. One day, the church cleaning lady is surprised to find him stabbed to death on the church floor.Continue Reading