Good Reads & Views

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves
Fiction

What’s it about: For fifty years a group of friends has met for reunions on the island where they all originally met during a school retreat. This time, one of them ends up hanged and DI Vera Stanhope and her team must find out what led up to the murder. Are secrets from the past to blame or are the motives for the murder of a more recent variety?

Reviewers say: "Cleeves crafts a clever central puzzle, then confers remarkable emotional complexity using her keenly drawn characters' advancing age, wistful nostalgia, and thorny shared history. A pinwheeling third-person narrative drives the pace, while Vera's candor tempers the plot's darker elements. Fair-play mystery fans will delight.” (Publishers Weekly).

Good to know:  The great Brenda Blethyn portrays the cantankerous but brilliant detective in a series of TV movies, available on dvd.

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Fiction 

What it’s about: For a totally madcap read, Dial A for Aunties! Meddelin Chan is a daughter and niece of an Indonesian-Chinese family and the photographer for the family business: planning weddings. She loves her aunties and mother even though they drive her crazy. They want to see Meddelin married and set her up online, but the guy tries to date rape her. In defending herself, she kills him! That’s when the aunties step in – they don’t call the police, they just hide the body in a cooler. Trouble is, they have a big wedding to cater to, and the corpse takes on a life of its own. 

Reviewers say: “Readers will die for the delightfully absurd hijinks in this dark comedy” (Kirkus); “Dial A for Aunties, indeed, as they navigate a high-profile wedding with a corpse in tow. Sound preposterous? Perhaps, but you'll be glad you went along for the yacht ride” (Booklist). 

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Marked Man by Archer Mayor
Fiction

What happens: A medical student working on a body that was donated to science discovers that the assumed “natural” death attributed to the cadaver might have actually been murder. Turns out the dead local philanthropist and millionaire wasn’t actually who he pretended to be and Joe Gunther and his team at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation look into the murder and others that follow.

Reviewers say: “it's been clear for quite awhile that Mayor's series--a perfect mix of character, setting, and story--is one of the best American police procedurals going” (Booklist Review); “Mayor matches vivid characters with clever plot twists. This is a perfect jumping-on point for newcomers” (Publishers Weekly).

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The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill
Fiction

What’s it about: DCI Serrailler has two murder cases to solve when torrential rainstorms unearth two bodies dating back 16 years. One was a missing girl, but who was the other and are their deaths connected? Quality-of-life issues also feature prominently in this sixth outing of the series.

Reviewers say: “Fully realized characters and efficient prose” (Publishers Weekly); "Fans and newcomers to Hill's series … will appreciate the characters' deep humanity” (Kirkus).

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The Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett
Fiction

What it’s about: Queen Elizabeth II is appalled to learn that one of the guests at Windsor Castle, a Russian pianist, was found hanged in his bedroom. Was it a sexual escapade gone wrong, or something more sinister? Everyone is trying to shield the Queen from the tawdry details, but what they don’t know is that she has been discreetly solving crimes behind the scenes for years. It’s a delight to watch her solve this one with the help of her private secretary, British Nigerian Rozie Oshodi.

Reviewers Say: “Bennett’s depiction of the warm, wise, and witty queen and the insights into her royal life are fascinating” (Publisher’s Weekly); “…the queen makes a wonderfully self-effacing sleuth” (Kirkus Reviews).

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The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow & Liz Lawson
YA Fiction

What it’s about: The Agathas is a captivating mystery set in small-town coastal California. The story is told from two different points of view. The first person’s point of view is Iris (written by Glasgow), a hard-working, financially struggling teen eager to elude a complicated and perilous home life; the second person is rich girl Alice (written by Lawson), who is struggling to deal with the relationship between her former best friend, Brooke, and ex-boyfriend, Steve, as well as the consequences of her own social fallout.

Is it for you? If you like reading brilliantly developed and authentic characters who deal with their pains and problems in realistic ways, then you should read this book.

You might also like: You’re so Dead by Ash Parsons

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The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert
Fiction

What it's about: A different kind of mystery, one involving missing, possibly stolen, things rather than a murder. This cozy mystery, based on real places and the author Beatrix Potter in 1905, features a large cast of village dwellers and their animals, whose talk to each other we can understand, but their owners cannot.

Why you might like it: If you enjoy leisurely-paced stories that describe the landscape lovingly and are up for the whimsey of the talking animals, this is for you.

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Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
Fiction

What it's about: Stressed-out single mom Finlay is at the local Panera trying to explain to her literary agent why she doesn’t have her next romantic suspense novel ready, when another woman overhears and thinks Finlay is a contract killer. How Finlay ends up with the dead body of a man she didn’t kill and how she tries to solve the mystery of who did the killing is a wild, twisting, and above all funny ride.

Why you might like it: Finlay’s balancing act is a suspenseful, laugh-out-loud mystery.

Reviewers say: “Cosimano makes her adult debut with this off-the-wall series starter, which is part comedy of errors, part genuine thriller” (Booklist); “Cosimano cuts dexterously between Finn's adventures as a hit woman, her deeply iffy romance with Fairfax County Detective Nicholas Anthony, and the domestic crises that keep on piling up as if nothing had ever happened to disturb them” (Kirkus Reviews).

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An Elderly Lady Must Not be Crossed by Helene Tursten
Fiction

What happens: Maude, last seen in An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, is now 89. She decides to escape cold Scandinavia (and a couple of suspicious cops hot on her heels) and flies off to South Africa. On her way there she reflects on dark deeds committed in her earlier years, and soon there are new annoyances to remedy…

Reviewers say: ”Assured prose matches an irresistible heroine. Readers are sure to welcome a third entry in this beguiling series” (Publishers Weekly); “Tursten effectively juxtaposes a cozy, Agatha Christie--like tone against the often surprisingly dark nature of Maud's recollections, which are rife with clever satirical jabs and delicious ironies. This absorbing dive into the mind of a ruthless pragmatist posing as a Swedish Miss Marple will please psychological-thriller fans, once they realize that Maud isn't nearly as cozy as she looks” (Booklist).

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A Shot in the Dark by Lynn Truss
Fiction

Not your typical mystery: This comic whodunnit is actually solved about half way through. The rest of the book is about young hero Constable Twitten's hilarious attempts to get his superior to believe him. Twitten believes theatre critic A.S. Crystal was killed because he remembered a crucial fact about an unsolved bank robbery years before, but Inspector Steine believes there is no crime in the seaside village of Brighton, and just wants to eat his ice cream in peace. Only the charwoman takes any notice of what Twitten says. Get ready for a wryly hilarious read.

Reviewers say:  "Truss successfully combines wry humor with a fair-play mystery” (Publisher’s Weekly); “Truss piles up ingenious plot twists, preposterous coincidences, snarky asides, and characters out of P.G. Wodehouse” (Kirkus Reviews).

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