Category: Mystery

I fell in love with Rennie Airth’s writing when I read River of Darkness, which was such a dark, clever story that I began to recommend it to library patrons constantly. The horrifyingly good writing continued in The Blood-Dimmed Tide and now returns in Dead of Winter, which picks up the story of John Madden 20 years after we  got to know him in Airth’s first book.

Old friends abound in Dead of Winter – Madden, his engaging wife Helen (who I always picture as Helen Mirren for some reason…), and his old cronies from the Yard, Angus Sinclair and Billy Styles. Madden has been retired and enjoying life as a farmer for two decades, when he is pulled back into the world of murder and mayhem by the murder of his “land girl,” Rosa Nowak.

Rosa, a Polish refugee who narrowly escaped the Nazi occupation and certain death, is found brutally murdered in a London alley while on the way to visit her only remaining relative, an aunt. The murder lands in the laps of Angus Sinclair and Billy Styles, who are stymied by the randomness and brutality of the murder. Once they discover the girl’s relationship to Madden, his involvement in the crime becomes inevitable, leading up to a tense and well-laid climax.

Airth’s writing is, as usual, eloquent and evocative without being overbearing. His treatment of the aging detectives and the changing face of London at the end of World War II is poignant — you can feel the tiredness and dejection of these men and women left to keep peace on the home front in the midst of aerial bomb attacks.

There are some new characters here who I hope Airth plans to write about again, especially Lily Poole, a female street cop who was first on the scene of Rosa Nowak’s murder. Poole gets pulled into the detective work required to track down the slippery killer and earns the admiration and respect of the brass with her plucky, clever ways.

The plot unfolds at a somewhat gentle pace, which some might find predictable and boring but which totally appeals to me. I had time to think about what was going to happen next and didn’t feel the urgency some mysteries evoke that makes me want to read the end first. Dead of Winter is a treat to be savored slowly. You’ll be glad you did.

Highly recommended.

Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth. Viking, 2009. ISBN: 0670020931

Haunt Me Still, the second Kate Stanley novel from Jennifer Lee Carrell, finds the Shakespearean stage director entwined in dark mystery surrounding the Scottish Play. Summoned to Dunsinnan by former Shakespearean actress Janet Douglas, Kate is asked to help unravel the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of the Lord of the Manor, who was tracking down a reportedly fabulous addition to his Macbeth collection, a legendary “first draft” of the play containing a detailed description of a forbidden ritual. All manner of dark arts are unleashed throughout the story, leading up to a hair rasing climax in a remote Scottish castle.

There are plenty of witches here, both old and new, as well as a  hefty dose of theatre history…all wound together in a tight and riveting plot. Carrell again tells two stories in time shift mode — Kate’s story in the 21st century, and Elizabeth Stewart, Lady Arran’s story in the 17th century.   Both stories meld into one another throughout, and this time, the dual stories work a little better, primarily because there are fewer characters in here than in Interred With Their Bones.

Carrell has continued to flesh out the character of Kate Stanley and I am anxious to see where she goes next. The plot here is unusual, well-researched and exciting, although there are a couple of predictable and pat scenes. Finding the lost manuscript in a convent-turned-university in New York State is stretching it a little, as is the gory sacrifice scene in the British Museum.

Even so, this is a solid read and a successful addition to what I hope will become a well-established character series. Also, there is a killer book trailer on Amazon — check it out.  Makes me hope this becomes a film.

I really like the “Recommended For You” feature provided by Amazon, most recently because it introduced me to Erin Hart, who writes archaeological, forensic mysteries, similar to Aaron Elkins.

Hart has three published novels, and I’ve made my way through the first two: Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows, both set in Ireland and featuring Irish-American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire.

Gavin and Maguire come together in Haunted Ground after the death of a common mentor and over the well-preserved head of a red-haired girl soaked in an Irish bog for several hundred years. Their budding relationship continues in Lake of Sorrows, as they struggle to solve the mystery of two bodies found in another bog, men who died hundreds of years apart but appeared to have been killed in an identical manner.

Both novels benefit from complex, multilayered plots involving fascinating, strong characters whose stories the reader wants to know. The historical elements surrounding the discovery of “bog bodies” prompted me to find out more about this topic, something that doesn’t always happen in the course of reading a mystery novel.

Linking to the novels on Amazon and seeing their covers makes me sorry I read these two on my Kindle, and made me realize that some books really benefit from the cover art. The third entry in this series, False Mermaid, is on my next-to-read list.

Touchstone by Laurie King – one of the best I’ve read in awhile. King writes a couple series that I’ve followed for years — the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series is fabulous, while her Kate Martinelli series is okay. This book is a departure from both and is really well-done. Set just after World War I in England, the story follows American agent Harris Stuyvesant as he pursues a British anarchist bomber who has been practicing his craft in America. In order to get close to the anarchist, Stuyvesant enlists the help of Bennett Grey, a decorated but much wounded WWI vet. Grey’s sister, Sarah, is a close confidant of the anarchist and provides Stuyvesant with a way to become part of their inner circle. Grey’s injury in the war left him a virtual anntenna for human emotion and dissonance. He can tell if someone is lying as easily as he can tell gold from gilt. Rolled up in this mix is the sinister British agent Carstairs, who is working to develop a lie detector and wants Grey as his lab rat. Supporting the story is a cast of well-developed characters, lush country settings, and spot on dialogue. If you like tightly plotted mysteries in the vein of Renie Airth, you’ll love this one.

Please. No more Temples or Templars! Despite this exclamation from main character Kate Stanley, Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell is a rollicking adventure in the style of The DaVinci Code and all the other great-scandals-of-history books that have flooded the marketplace in recent years. No Templars here, though, but another history-mystery, all about the “Sweetest Swan of Avon,” the Bard himself, William Shakespeare.

The story begins with Kate Stanley, a former Shakespearean scholar who has ditched life in academia in favor of directing the man’s plays at the Globe in London, much to the dismay of her mentor, Roz Howard. Kate knows something’s up when Roz visits her in London, gives her a mysterious box, and then is promptly killed, all while the Globe burns on the anniversary of it’s destruction by fire in 1613. As Kate begins to unravel the mystery, she discovers that it centers on a lost play of Shakespeare’s, Cardenio, which was performed only twice before it disappeared for good.  Kate’s search for answers takes her to nearly every important depository of Shakespearean scholarship on the planet, all the while accompanied by mysterious Ben Pearl, who appears just in time to save Kate from an even more mysterious and deadly stalker.

Eventually, the age-old question of the true authorship of Shakespeare’s plays comes into the story. That gnarly question, combined with a few flashback chapters to 1598 – 1612 which feature a mysterious dark woman, an angelic blond boy and the Great Man Himself, serve to muddy the waters. Although a generally ripping good tale, the author introduced way too many characters in both present and past time. By the end of the book, I really didn’t care who Shakespeare was, who he slept with, who could have written the plays, or how many children he fathered. I only wanted to know who killed all the Shakespearean scholars that litter the pages of this book.

The author handled the present-day story skillfully and kept the action moving right up to the surprising ending. I confess, I skimmed over much of the “who wrote the plays” business and concentrated on Kate’s quest to find the missing play. And really, that was enough to keep my interest….the rest was superfluous. Overall, a tasty mystery with a decent dose of history. No Templars, but plenty of intrigue. Recommended.

I was browsing a few weeks ago among the fabulous displays done by the Lit staff at the Central Library and happened across a familiar author writing in an unfamiliar genre. Jill Paton Walsh has been one of my top 10 favorite young adult authors ever since Ellin Chu made me read A Parcel of Patterns years ago. Imagine my surprise and delight when I fouund that she’s now writing mysteries for adults.

The Bad Quarto is the latest in her Imogen Quy (rhymes with “why”) series. Imogen is a nurse at St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge University, but moonlights as a part-time sleuth. Devoted mystery readers know that the Universities in England are awash with mystery and intrigue, and in the grand tradition of Dorothy Sayers, St. Agatha’s is no different. This time around, Imogen must unravel the mysterious death of a promising scholar, which becomes tied up with a production of Shakespeare’s “Bad Quarto” version of Hamlet, which which leads her to the daring “night climbers” of Cambridge, and finally to a sad and dangerous young woman.

Imogen is everything we want in a sleuth – single, self-possessed, empathetic, smart, funny, daring — a real Nancy Drew. She handles all the (many) characters throughout the story with aplomb. The story is short, a mere 265 pages, but Paton Walsh packs a lot into that small space — almost too much. There is an over abundance of characters here and I did have some trouble keeping them all straight at times. However, Paton Walsh ties up the ends into a neat little bow, leaving me wanting more of Imogen Quy. I will be looking for her earlier titles now, and waiting for the next in the series.