Good Reads & Views

Whispers of the Dead by Spencer Kope
Fiction

Starring: FBI agent Jimmy Donovan, who has a knack for profiling, and Magnus “Steps” Craig, Donovan’s partner, who has the special ability of seeing an individual’s “shine” – a unique color and texture signature specific to each person. Both work for the FBI’s Special Tracking Unit and first appeared in Collecting the Dead.

What it’s about: Jimmy and Steps investigate after a styrofoam ice box containing a pair of severed feet is left at the house of a federal judge. The “ice box killer” leaves behind a trail of ice blue “shine” for Steps to follow when more severed feet show up.

Reviewers say: “Thriller devotees will devour this unpredictable mystery, wanting more from Steps and Jimmy” (Library Journal). “With its deadpan banter and gritty narrative, Kope's second case has a Dirty Harry vibe and finds a sweet noir groove” (Kirkus).

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

How It Happened by Michael Koryta
Fiction

What it’s about: FBI interrogation specialist Rob Barrett takes on the case of a double murder in Maine and gets a confession out of local drug addict Kimmie Crepeaux. She confesses to having helped conceal the murders and accuses well-known and well-liked local resident Mathias Burke of committing the murders. Problem is, when the lake where Burke supposedly dumped the bodies is searched, nothing is found and Kimmie is branded a liar. Only Barrett believes her and starts to investigate Burke, making enemies of the local community and law enforcement.

Reviewers say: Kirkus calls it “flawless, unpredictable storytelling,” and Publishers Weekly writes that Koryta “has few peers in combining murder mysteries with psychological puzzles.”

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

 

Force of Nature  by Jane Harper
Fiction

What it’s about: Five female employees of an accounting firm are sent on a team-building exercise in the Australian wilderness, but only four return. Federal Agents Falk and Cooper get involved in the search for Alice, the missing woman, because she was their inside source in an investigation of possible money laundering by the firm.

Series alert: This is Harper’s second thriller featuring Aaron Falk, after The Dry, which won The British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award for the best crime novel of the year in 2017.

Reviewers say: Publishers Weekly calls it “a gripping tale of an elemental battle for survival,” and Kirkus writes that “Harper layers her story with hidden depths, expertly mining the distrust between Alice and her four colleagues, and the secrets that simmer under the surface.”

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

Finders Keepers by Stephen King
Fiction

Decades ago, Morris Bellamy murdered his literary idol and stole not just money but also over 100 notebooks with unpublished writings by the author. Right after burying his treasure in a trunk, he is arrested and ends up spending 35 years in prison for an unrelated crime. Now he’s out and he wants his loot back. Imagine his horror when he finds the buried trunk empty. Young Pete Saubers has used the money he accidentally found in the trunk to keep his family afloat during lean times. Now the money is gone but the notebooks are still here and Pete decides to see if he can sell them. Big mistake, because now Bellamy is after him and the extremely valuable notebooks, and Pete needs the help of former cop Hodges and his team to elude Bellamy’s wrath. The second in the Bill Hodges trilogy, this can be read as a standalone novel. The audiobook is, as always, excellently rendered by Will Patton.

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Fiction

1867 Ontario, Canada. Mrs. Ross, who narrates parts of the book, finds the murdered body of a trapper in his cabin. Her teenage son Francis, who was friends with the dead trapper, has disappeared and is assumed by some to have been the killer. She decides to go searching for Francis with the help of half-Indian trapper William Parker. Of this 2006 Costa Book of the Year winner, Booklist writes the following: “This atmospheric, multilayered first novel is part murder mystery, part historical saga, and part meditation on civilization versus wilderness. The sparsely settled, frozen landscape is vividly evoked, and each stage of the pursuit takes the characters deeper into the wild and deeper into him-or her-self.”

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
Fiction

Arthur Pepper lived a quiet and contented, if very ordinary, life with his wife Miriam. One year after her death, he discovers a charm bracelet among her things that he has never seen before. There is a telephone number on one charm and thus begins a most surprising odyssey to London, Paris, and India to discover who Miriam was before she met Arthur. Arthur’s journey of self-discovery is a story of optimism and healing.

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Fiction

Stephen King’s hard-boiled detective thriller finds Bill Hodges retired from the police force and contemplating suicide. Then he receives a note from the “Mercedes killer” who killed 8 people at a jobs fair and was never caught. Mr. Mercedes is trying to talk Hodges into killing himself, just as he talked the woman whose Mercedes he used in the killings to commit suicide. But Hodges comes out of his depression and decides to go after the Mercedes killer, Brady Hartfield, who lives with his alcoholic mother in the same house he has lived all his life. Brady has plans for a much bigger massacre and Hodges means to stop him. Will Patton does an excellent job narrating the audiobook, doing full justice to both leads, Hodges and the Mercedes killer.

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan
Fiction

Real estate inspector David Malone starts an affair with local law student Jana Fletcher after discovering that his live-in fiancée cheated on him. Less than two weeks after meeting Jana, he is a suspect in her murder. The real killer, who calls himself “K”, goes on to kill another woman and reveals what else he has been doing that brought him to this point; he is now debating if and how he should go about killing David, who has decided to investigate Jana’s murder. This is a prequel to Dolan’s Bad Things Happen where David Malone becomes David Loogan. Intricately plotted and fast-paced, this is a book of well-crafted suspense.

Visit Astrid’s My Librarian Page

What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan
Fiction

A psychological suspense novel about Rachel Jenner who is out walking in the park with her eight-year-old son Ben and their dog when Ben asks to run ahead by himself and out of sight. After she discovers their dog has been injured but no Ben she becomes frantic and calls the police. The search begins for Ben and the person who may have taken him. Detective Inspector James Clemo is put in charge of the case and is frustrated by how long it is taking him to solve it. Everyone is under suspicion including Rachel’s ex-husband and new wife and her own sister. Rachel of course blames herself and soon is on trial in the press. A compelling storyline and a good book to listen with two narrators.

Visit Roseanne's My Librarian page

Dark Saturday by Nicci French
Fiction

This menacing and dark mystery features a psychotherapist, Frieda Klein, who consults for the London police. Still recovering from a traumatic experience of the previous summer, Freida is asked to interview a young woman, Hannah, who was convicted of murdering her family and has been in a mental hospital for thirteen years. Freida is haunted by the broken shell Hannah has become, and suspects that the young woman may be innocent. As Freida digs further into the case, a person who may have valuable information about Hannah’s family is killed. Intricately plotted and chilling, this is the sixth in a series that reads well as a standalone, although there is an overarching story with a cliffhanger ending that should continue in the next volume.

Visit Laura's My Librarian page