Some people read mysteries to figure out who did it. Not me. I read mysteries (several a week) because they are full of contradictions, lies and truths, and humans making hard and sometimes stupid decisions. I lean toward mysteries that are literary in writing quality with quirky, complicated characters; a good sense of humor; and diverse settings. In my cozy Minnesota mystery series featuring Maya Skye, I am interested in the contradiction of a yoga teacher who is dedicated to seeking inner peace and yet drawn to mayhem. As Maya says, “We may try to follow the path, but life isn’t all Minnesota nice.”
In my very first mystery writing class, the instructor assigned A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane. She said it was to show that mysteries are more than whodunits. They can be literary, filled with compelling characters, action, humor, and, above all, wonderful writing. And that is why I have devoured every Lehane book featuring Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. They provide all that and more. You see, Kenzie and Gennaro live by a code that compels them to do what is right, even when it will get them into terrible trouble. I am intensely attracted to heroes with principles, and I melt at a well-turned phrase.
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are tough private investigators who know the blue-collar neighbourhoods and ghettos of Boston's Dorchester section as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: to uncover the whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential Statehouse documents. But finding Jenna proves easy compared to staying alive. The investigation escalates, uncovering a web of corruption extending from bombed-out ghetto streets to the highest levels of state government.
With slick, hip dialogue and a lyrical narrative pocked…
I have never been to London, but Christopher Fowler makes me want to book a plane ticket. His immense collection of mysteries (18 so far) features adorable curmudgeon Arthur Bryant and his partner, John May, an elderly Lothario. These quirky detectives are the heartbeat of the even quirkier Peculiar Crimes Unit (yes, that’s its real name). I am a big fan of teams in mystery solving—not just because they all help out solving the puzzle but because of the emotions and relationships that become entangled among team members. Fowler delivers fascinating British history, smart humor, and delightful writing. Guilty secret: I would love to reach into Arthur Bryant’s big old coat pockets; they always contain the most outlandish things (many essential to solving the crime, of course).
They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught once before . . . Arthur Bryant, John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit are on the trail of an enigma: a young man called Mr Fox. But his identity is false, his links to society are invisible and his home yields no clues. All they know is that somehow he escaped from a locked room and murdered one of their best and brightest. Now the detectives are being lured down into the darkest recesses of the London Underground where their quarry, expertly disguised, has struck again. Their…
Meet Tony Valenti. His high-flying corporate law career just cratered. His society marriage blew up in a bitter divorce. He's returned to the Chicago suburbs to lick his wounds and regroup in the haven of the Valenti family home. But time to heal isn't in the cards.
My favorite Danish mystery writer is Jussi Adler-Olsen, author of the incomparable Department Q novels. Department Q is where Copenhagen’s cold cases live, and it is wonderfully weird Detective Carl Morck’s job to thaw them out. He has help: a fascinating sidekick named Assad, a Syrian immigrant with a backpack of mysterious skills and a hidden past. I would call these books Scandinavian lite or Nordic noir because they are fun. I love grumpy sleuths with soft hearts, sidekicks that end up saving their bosses in crazy ways, and plots that are never what they seem.
Get to know the detective in charge of Copenhagen's coldest cases in the first electrifying Department Q mystery from New York Times bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen.
Carl Morck used to be one of Denmark's best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl-who didn't draw his weapon-blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl's got only a stack of cold cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at…
Estelle Ryan writes mysteries set in France with a most unusual sleuth: autistic insurance investigator Dr. Genevieve Lenard. I am fascinated by how Lenard, a world-renowned expert on nonverbal communication, navigates both her personal and professional lives as she tracks down art thieves. She is a human lie detector who can’t bear to be touched and who, when upset, goes into autistic meltdowns in which she writes classical music in her head. I go to Ryan’s website to see the artwork and listen to the music featured in each book. Lenard also has a quirky team of sidekicks that I adore and that bring humanity to Lenard’s sheltered life: a former art thief, a hacker, a cop, and a tough guy.
Despite her initial disbelief, Doctor Genevieve Lenard discovers that she is the key that connects stolen works of art, ciphers and sinister threats.
Betrayed by the people who called themselves her friends, Genevieve throws herself into her insurance investigation job with autistic single-mindedness. When hacker Francine appears beaten and bloodied on her doorstep, begging for her help, Genevieve is forced to get past the hurt of her friends’ abandonment and team up with them to find the perpetrators.
Little does she know that it will take her on a journey through not one,…
This memoir chronicles the lives of three generations of women with a passion for reading, writing, and travel. The story begins in 1992 in an unfinished attic in Brooklyn as the author reads a notebook written by her grandmother nearly 100 years earlier. This sets her on a 30-year search…
Who doesn’t love a couple who bicker one moment and save each other’s lives the next? That defines married archeologists Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson, who fight off graverobbers and murderers while excavating the great tombs of Egypt in 1917. Amelia, who tells this story with wit and panache, is my kind of gal—she fights off villains with her ever-present sturdy umbrella. Dashing Radcliffe is devoted to her and exasperated by her antics. As the series has grown, so has the family. I adore the introduction of their son, Ramses, who is as brilliant, daring, and foolhardy as his parents.
At the start of this fourteenth adventure for Amelia, which continues the wartime theme begun in Lord of the Silent, it is New Year's Eve, 1917.
Risking winter storms and German torpedoes, the Emersons are heading for Egypt once again: Amelia, Emerson, their son Ramses and his wife Nefret. Emerson is counting on a long season of excavation without distractions but this proves to be a forlorn hope. Yet again they unearth a dead body in a looted tomb - not a mummified one though, this one is only too fresh, and it leads the clan on a search for…
Maya Skye inherits a diary filled with mysterious secrets and startling scents that change with the turn of the page. Someone has killed her mentor, a former Hell’s Angel turned shaman, for the book and now they are coming after her. But they will find this yoga teacher isn’t afraid to fight—when it comes to finding justice for her old friend and protecting the Down Dog Diary.
Set in small Gabriel’s Garden, Minnesota, this is a cozy mystery told with humor, drama, and a cast of quirky characters. It’s a Midwest Book Awards Finalist and a Library Journal Indie Author Project Select Title. Other books in the series: Warrior’s Revenge and Crow Calling.
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Club’s strategy to form a world federation.
Four sisters in hiding. A grand duchess in disguise. Dark family secrets revealed. An alternate future for the Romanovs from Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter Of The Tsar.
With her parents and brother missing and presumed dead, former Grand Duchess Olga Romanova must keep her younger sisters…
