‘Murder at the Lanterne Rouge’ By Cara Black

Published by Soho Crime,
March, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-61695-061-3

The latest Aimee LeDuc mystery has one plot intertwined with two themes.  To begin with, we are introduced to a young Chinese woman, Meizi, with whom Aimee’s business partner, Rene, is deeply infatuated. She turns out to be an illegal immigrant, and Aimee determines to find out more about the woman to protect Rene before it might be too late.  At the same time, a young Frenchman is found murdered just outside the restaurant where Aimee, Rene and Meizi and her parents were dining.

During the dinner Meizi receives a phone call and abruptly leaves, disappearing, immediately becoming a suspect in the murder.  The victim it develops has made a unique discovery, and Aimee, together with Rene and their part-time geek, Saj, have to somehow find out what it was, while Aimee attempts to protect Meizi from an impending sweep of Chinatown by the police and find the killer.

Once again the author provides a sweeping panorama of the City of Lights, and perhaps a lot of Aimee’s fashion acquisitions (but after all, isn’t that what Paris, to some degree, is all about?).  Smoothly written and tightly plotted, the novel once again raises the question of whether Aimee will ever meet her mother, who is a wanted woman. Good reading, and recommended.
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Reviewer: Ted Feit

Earlier books are Murder in the Marais, Murder in the Chabris, Murder in Belleville, Murder in the Sentier, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Clichy, Murder On the Ile Saintt-Louis, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, Murder in the Latin Quarter, Murder on the Palais Royal, Death in Passey

Cara Black lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Hebrew. She's included in the Great Women Writers by Elizabeth Lindsay Her first three novels in the series Murder in the Marais, Murder in Belleville and Murder in the Sentier -  nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Novel - were published in the UK in 2008 and, Murder in the Latin Quarter came out in the UK in 2010. Several of her books have been chosen as Book Sense Picks by the American Association of Independent Bookstores.

Ted and Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, NY, a few miles outside New York City.  For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications.  Having always been avid mystery readers, and since they're now retired, they're able to indulge that passion.  Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US.  On a more personal note: both having been widowed, Gloria and Ted have five children and nine grandchildren between them.

‘Smoke Alarm’ by Priscilla Masters

Published by Severn House,
26 July 2012. 
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8199-1

I was gripped from the prologue, and as I came to the end of the few pages I realised that I was actually holding my breath!

A fire at the Melverley Grange on a cold night in February 2011, claims the lives of three members of the Barton family. Early investigation into the cause of the fire suggests that it was started deliberately.

Detective Inspector Alex Randall calls on Coroner Martha Gunn to ask her to visit the scene. Martha known for her insightful assessments is interested and accompanies Alex Randall to the Grange.  Poking about and listening to the account of where the bodies were found, poses several anomalies, which puzzle Martha.

A second house fire started in a similar fashion raises even more questions – are the two fires related?  But the occupant of the house where the second fire is set seems to have no connection with the family at the Grange.  And where is retired nurse Monica Deverill? As the investigation continues, each step forward brings not answers, but more confusion and more questions.

This is the fifth book in the series and Martha’s twins are now spreading their wings Sukey with ambition to be an actress and Sam off to university.  Martha, whose husband Martin had died in an accident, is becoming aware that soon she will be on her own.  She has been seeing for a weekly dinner, the widower of a friend, Simon Pendlebury – suave, wealthy and handsome, he is a woman’s dream but for some unexplained reason Martha doesn’t quite trust him, although she has actually no reason not to.  The one person to whom she has an attraction is married - so off limits, although he has never spoken of his home life, he doesn’t exude happiness.

Whilst an intriguing mystery, much of the strength of the book lies in the wonderful characterisation, which means one has to mention, Jerico Palfreyman who guards access to Martha as a lioness guards her young.

Priscilla Masters has a medical background and this is clearly demonstrated as the investigation continues and we find mental health and dementia contributing to the tragedy and not only at Melverley Grange. Cleverly plotted, one of those books that you can’t put down, not even when the clock is chiming 1am, you just have to keep turning those pages.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Earlier books in the series are River Deep, Slip Knot, and Frozen Charlotte.

Priscilla Masters Priscilla Master’s writing career started in 1987 when she published Mr. Bateman's Garden, a children's book set in Biddulph Grange Gardens belonging to the National Trust. After that she created Inspector Joanna Piercy, in which there are ten books in the series. She has now also written a number of Medical Mysteries.  Her latest series features Coroner Martha Gunn.

Priscilla Masters lives in Shropshire, England. She works part-time in Staffordshire as a practice nurse.

‘V is For Vengeance’ by Sue Grafton

Published by Pan,
2 August 2012.

ISBN: 978-0-330-51277-0

PI Kinsey Millhone is shopping in the lingerie department in Santa Teresa, when she sees a woman shop-lifting.  Kinsey informs the saleslady, and she in turn calls security.  When the woman is apprehended and Kinsey later learns that she is being charged, Kinsey is pleased with a job well done, although she had been aware that the woman was not working alone and her accomplice has got free and clear.

However, when Kinsey learns a few days later that the woman jumped off a bridge she is troubled by such an extreme action for a shoplifting offence.  When she is later contacted by the woman’s fiancé she agrees to do some investigation.

Meanwhile her neighbour 88 year-old Henry, a retired baker is called away to Detroit following a fall by his 99 year-old sister Nell.  In edition to his elder sister Nell, Henry has three brothers Lewis, Charles and William, the latter just a year older than Henry who had relocated to Santa Teresa when he married Rosie who runs a tavern in the locality, serves bad wine and weird Hungarian food.  I admit to enjoying the exploits of Henry’s aged family, being not exactly in the first flush of youth it’s good to hear of octogenarians living full and happy lives.

The story is rich in well-fleshed out characters, a young man borrowing money from a loan shark, a rich woman who discovers her husband is being unfaithful, and Detective Len Priddy who knew Kinsey’s late husband and is no fan of Kinsey’s.  These people initially seem to be unconnected to each other, but as the story progresses these unlikely strands are woven together. 

I was a great fan of this series set in the 1980’s but had somehow missed the last few books, something I must remedy as I so enjoyed this entry in the series, which like all good mysteries has a surprising twist at the end.  Highly recommended.

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Lizzie Hayes

Sue Taylor Grafton born April 24, 1940 is best known as the author of the 'alphabet’ series featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictitional town of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of novelist C W Grafton, she has said the strongest influence on her novels is the author Ross MacDonald. . Prior to success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.  She lives in Montecito, California and Louisville Kentucky.  She freely admits that Kinsey Millhone is her alter ego.  In 2008 she was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in the genre of crime writing by the Crime Writers association.

‘Property of a Lady’ by Sarah Rayne

Published by Severn House,
31 March 2011.
ISBN: 978-1-84751-347-2 (HB)

When Jack and Liz Harper learn that they have inherited a house in Marston Lacy in Shropshire, Jack is all for selling it unseen, as living in Maryland USA there is little chance of their being able to inspect it, but Liz is eager to learn all about the house, and the English ancestors she never knew she had.    As a compromise Jack emails his friend Michael Flint, and asks him if he will leave Oxford and pop up to Shropshire to have a look at the place, and send him some photographs.

So, the coming weekend Michael books himself into the local pub in Marston Lacy. Meanwhile not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Liz has contacted a local antiques dealer to see if she can track down any of the house’s original furniture, and Michael now has an extra chore to look up antique dealer Nell West who lives in Marston Lacy, and has located a nineteenth century long-case clock reputed to have been the property of a lady who lived at the house.

Armed with his camera Michael visits Charect House which has stood empty for more than a century and has a sinister reputation.  While he is taking photos of various aspects of the house for Jack, Michael is conscious of a ticking clock but cannot actually locate the clock.  Later Michael meets Nell West and her young daughter Beth, who is close in age to Ellie, Jack and Liz Harper’s daughter.  It is Beth who hears the ‘Dead Man’s Knock' - has she become the catalyst to awaken the evil in Charect House? 

Utterly fascinating, the past history of Charect House is slowly revealed through some old diaries discovered during the house renovations and through another unexpected source.  But while there are still secrets hidden in Charect House how close is tragedy.

Not a book to read alone late a night, creepy and at times terrifying, Sarah Rayne weaves an intriguing tale with a chilling twist at the end. Highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes 

 

Sarah Rayne began writing in her teens, and after a Convent education, which included writing plays for the Lower Third to perform, embarked on a variety of jobs. Her first novel was published in 1982, and since then she has written more than 20 books, including eight psychological thrillers, which have met with considerable acclaim, including the nomination to the long-list for the prestigious Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year 2005 for Tower of Silence, (originally published in 2003). In 2011, she embarked on a series of books with a ghost-theme, featuring the antique dealer, Nell West, and the Oxford don, Michael Flint, who first make their appearance in Property of a Lady.

‘The Real Macaw’ by Donna Andrews

Published by St Martin's Press 

June 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-250-00864-0

It is two in the morning and Meg Langslow is feeding her four-month-old twin sons when she hears strange noises from the living room of her house.  Going downstairs to investigate, she finds her home has been turned into a makeshift animal sanctuary.  In order to save money, the mayor has reversed the town's policy of running a sanctuary with a 'no kill' policy.  Meg's eccentric grandfather, father and brother have spearheaded an action group to break into the sanctuary and rescue the animals and now need sanctuary for a large collection of domestic pets, including a rare and exceptionally foul-mouthed macaw.  Unfortunately, Parker Blair, the man who had volunteered to transport the animals out of the county to safety has not turned up.  He has a good excuse. 

Parker has been murdered.

Contrary to her usual practice, Meg tries not to get involved in the investigation because she is mindful of her duty to her babies.  However clues present themselves and she cannot ignore them.  Meg soon discovers that Parker was a womaniser with many lovers, but he was also a devoted worker for animal welfare and an amateur investigator who has uncovered evidence that the mayor's corrupt practices have brought the town to the verge of bankruptcy.  But which of these facets of Parker's character have led to his murder?

As well as looking after her babies and her five-year-old, long-term house guest, Timmy, and investigating a murder, Meg has to battle to prevent her home from being forcibly taken over by the corrupt administration, and help her neighbours pack up the county's assets as the bank who lent the mayor money takes over the civic buildings.  Then, to add to her stress, her grandfather is attacked and badly injured.  That makes it personal.

The Real Macaw has just been released in paperback.  It is the thirteenth book featuring Meg Langslow.  All the books have humorous titles featuring the name of a bird.  (I think my favourite, most quirky title is The Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos.)  In the first book in the series, Murder With Peacocks, Meg, a professional blacksmith, meets Michael, an actor and drama teacher.  The books follow their relationship, their engagement, marriage and house buying, then the bravest move of all for a fictional female sleuth, having children.

The Real Macaw is an excellent read. It has a clever plot twist that is very satisfying. Also it is warm and funny and totally engaging, filled with endearing and eccentric characters, including Meg's extensive, warm-hearted, enthusiastic and eccentric family; the long-suffering and competent Chief of Police and, last but not least, Spike the dog, alias the Small Evil One.

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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Donna Andrews is a winner of the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, a Romantic Times Award for best first novel, and two Lefty and two Toby Bromberg awards for funniest mystery. She spends her free time gardening at her home in Reston, Virginia.

Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a core contributor to Women's Weekly.  She also writes contemporary and historical crime and is currently looking for an agent or publisher.  An Adult Education teacher, Carol has always maintained that writing and reading fiction is good for people and has spent much of her career facilitating Creative Writing for disabled people.

‘Tigers in Red Weather’ by Liza Klaussmann

Published by Picador,
2 August 2012.  ISBN: 978-1-4472-1220-1

The book covers a period from December 1944 through to October 1969.  The story is told by five members of the same family.  Although the book is split into sections, each section being written in the first person by that family member, the time period in each section is not chronological.  Thus piecing together the story is rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Although murder is part of the story, it is in essence about relationships. In the opening section it is September 1945 and we meet the two cousins, Nick and Helena, in the house in Elm Street Cambridge Massachusetts, on the eve of change. Helena is off to Hollywood to be married for the second time, and Nick is to travel to be reunited with her husband Hughes who has been serving overseas. They console each other about living so far apart with the promise that they will meet up every summer at their houses on Martha’s Vineyard, and from then on most of the story takes place at Tiger House on Martha’s Vineyard.

But neither of their lives work-out as they had envisaged. Each time they meet up at Tiger House, the glamour and sophistication is much in evidence, but below the surface simmers, jealousy, infidelity and many secrets.  When one summer, violence disrupts their reunion, mistrust and suspicion arrive at Tiger House to fester unfettered among the already complex passions that have grown up over the years.

The overriding feeling is tension. In a way unlike many books the tension doesn’t build up, it’s just there, right from the beginning tension smoulders behind every conversation, at every meeting, it is almost tangible.  The ending was, gripping and unexpected.

This is an amazing debut. Complex and well plotted, I cannot wait to see where Liza Klausssmann takes us next.

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Lizzie Hayes

Liza Klaussmann worked as a journalist for the New York Times for over a decade. She received a BA in Creative Writing from Barnard College, where she was awarded the Howard M. Teichman Prize for Prose. She lived in Paris for ten years and she recently completed with distinction an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, in London, where she lives. She is the great-great-great granddaughter of Herman Melville.

‘Cross Bones Yard’ by Kate Rhodes

Published by Mulholland Books,
June 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-444-73875-9

Psychologist Alice Quentin is approached by DCI Don Burns of Southwark police to visit Morris Cley who is being released from prison the next day owing to a technicality.  What Burns wants to know is how much of a threat to society is Morris Cley. 

A few days later running off a difficult telephone conversation with her boyfriend Sean, who is making her feel suffocated, Alice finds a body at Crossbones Yard, now a waste ground partially cleared, which was the site of Crossbones Cemetery where over a thousand prostitutes where buried between the 1850’s and 1994.

Later DCI Don Burns contacts Alice to look at the body as he says the wounds are similar to those on the victims of the murders committed by Ray and Marie Benson and he suspects Morris Cley. Cley’s mom was close friends with Ray and Marie Benson who had killed 13 women before they were caught, tried and imprisoned. Five of their victims were never found. Then Don Burns brings in DS Alvarez, the bad-tempered detective whom Alice had met the night she found the body, a man with a permanent scowl, who feels that Alice maybe able to help.

In the midst of this Alice is dealing with her brother Will who is bi-polar and lives in a van in her drive, refusing to move into the house. Will is unpredictable alternating between docility and violent episodes.  Into this uncomfortable situation arrives her friend the actress Lola who despite being exotic and excitable seems to be able to calm Will.

Soon the letters start and then another body - someone Alice knows, so is the killer someone close to Alice?

The book is beautifully written with many atmospheric descriptions of London. Alice is an interesting character with issues, the history of which is slowly revealed to the reader as the book progresses.  This is a fast paced compelling story that has a stunning climax that left me reeling. I just didn’t see it coming.  Put this on your ‘must read’ list.

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Lizzie Hayes

Kate Rhodes was born in London. She has a PhD in modern American literature and has taught English at British and American universities. She spent several years working in the southern states of America, first in Texas, then at a liberal arts college in Florida. Kate is currently writing full-time and lives in Cambridge with her husband Dave Pescod, a writer and film maker. Crossbones Yard is Kate’s first crime novel. The second novel in the Alice Quentin series, A Killing of Angels will be published in June 2013. www.katerhodes.org

‘The Silence’ by Alison Bruce

Published by Constable,
19 July 2012. 
ISBN: 978-1-84901-203-4

The killing of Joey McCarthy in a parking lot has remained an unsolved crime put down to a random an act of violence.

Four years later with the death of her mother from cancer, and within a short space of time the suicide of two friends, Charlotte Stone’s life is disintegrating so she tries to reconcile her brother Matt with her Dad.

The report of a missing housemate brings DC Gary Goodhew to the home of seven housemates, a mix of first-year students attending Anglia Ruskin University. While some of the housemates grew up together like Matt and Libby, others are strangers, with Shanie from Indiana in the USA, and Gunvald from Oslo. Interviewing each of the housemates Gary learns the identities of the two suicides which bring back deeply buried memories, and take him into the orbit of Charlotte Stone. Together they begin to question if these tragedies could be linked.  This in turn confronts them with the possibility that the suicides were orchestrated, and if so who is next?

There are multiple third person narratives, interspersed with emails from Libby to a friend called Zoe – these email narratives provide a background to the suicides and the lives of the house mates.  The exploration of these relationships is a powerful part of the story, and as Gary investigates surprising information emerges, but nothing prepared me for the ending.

Complex and well-plotted, this entry in the series is highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Earlier books in the series are, Cambridge Blue, The Siren, and The Calling

Alison Bruce moved to Cambridge in 1998, where the DC Goodhew series is set.  Prior to writing her crime series, Alison had studied in around Cambridge researching  for two non-fiction books, Cambridge Murders, and The Billingtons, Death in the Family.

Alison has two children, enjoys writing songs and playing poker.

‘Fear in the Sunlight’ by Nicola Upson

Narrated by Sandra Duncan.
Published by Whole Story Audio Books.  (Full and Unabridged)
ISBN: 978-1-47120-301-5
11 CD’s 12.5 Hours Playing Time.

In July 1954 following the filming of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, three bodies are found when the elaborate apartment set is dismantled.  News of the killing is brought to London by the American Detective Tom Doyle, who feels that they may be a link between these recent killings to a series of murders 18 years before.  Chief Inspector Archie Penrose recalls the earlier murders in the summer of 1936, when Josephine Tey along with friends, is in the resort of Portmeirion in Wales to celebrate her fortieth birthday, and for a meeting with Alfred Hitchcock to talk about a possible film deal for her book A Shilling for Candles. As Archie Penrose tells the American detective Doyle, the resultant film Young and Innocent, although a success bore as much likeness to Josephine’s book as did the title - Josephine had not been pleased.

The book centres on that summer gathering in 1936.  We meet the party of Hitchcock’s guests - a number of actors, including Josephine’s friend the actress Marta Fox and her partner Lydia, also the Motley sisters who have featured in previous books.  We learn that Hitchcock has some unusual plans to entertain the party, which proves to have unpleasant consequences.

The book is evenly balanced between an absorbing mystery – and the lives of the characters, as although in a short space of time three deaths occur, much of the book explores the characters lives and their relationships with each other - rather amazingly several of them come from Wales. Also, in this the fourth book we learn more of Josephine’s love life on which she has now reached a crossroads.  

Beautifully written, the reader is sharply aware of the pain Archie feels at the loss of Josephine, as this story is written two years after Josephine’s death.  I enjoyed the elements of the conversations that touched on the matters of the day, such as the relationship of the Prince of Wales with the American woman! But it is the slow peeling away of the tangled emotions of the people involved that grips the reader and makes compelling reading.

Sandra Duncan has a remarkable range of voices.  I loved particularly her Archie Penrose, she made him sound as I imagined him, reassuring, strong and interesting, which contrasted so well with Josephine’s rather clipped Scottish accent.  Her narration greatly enhanced my enjoyment.

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Lizzie Hayes

Nicola Upson was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist, and is the author of two non-fiction works, and the recipient of an Escalator Award from Arts Council England.

Since discovering the work of Golden Age author Josephine Tey/Gordon Daviot, she has developed a passion for the theatre and literature of the period, and an admiration for those who wrote and performed between

‘Buckingham Palace Blues’ by James Craig

Published by Robinson,
2 August 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-84901-585-1

Jogging through London near Buckingham Palace on his day off, Inspector John Carlyle notices a young girl maybe nine or ten- years old sitting on a bench. On his next circuit she is still there, as there is no one close to her, he approaches her, but she does not understand English, so he calls it in.

This chance encounter leads Carlyle to a child-trafficking ring that seems to be linked to SO14, the Royal Protection Unit that polices Buckingham Palace.  Carlyle had at one time been part of SO14, so in investigating this lead he comes up against former colleagues, and they don’t all have good memories of him.

His boss Superintendent Carole Simpson gives him a limited time to investigate. Seeking the identity of the young girl leads him to Ukrainian gangsters, but when further investigations uncover possible links to members of the British aristocracy he knows that he is operating on borrowed time. Carole has her own problems with her husband in prison for fraud she is conscious that she can’t afford to put a foot wrong. Indeed she is lucky to have retained both her job and position within the police force.

I have reviewed both the two earlier books in this series and this is well up to the high standard of those earlier books.  Carlyle is a great character in that he is just an ordinary guy doing a job, but just occasionally he is superb. Although, all he wants is to put in a good days work and then go home to his wife Helen and his daughter Alice, just sometimes even though he doesn’t want to, and when no one is making him do anything, he goes the extra mile.  His passion for Danish pastries is legendary.

The story has both its tragic moments and many humorous ones, which is what life is made up of, and makes the story so believable.  As with the earlier books, which if you haven’t yet read I urge you to do so, I read this in one sitting, unable to put it down. This is a real page turner. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

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Lizzie Hayes

James Craig was born in Scotland, but has lived and worked in London for thirty years. He worked as a journalist for ten years and as a TV producer for five. He lives in Covent Garden with his wife and daughter.

His earlier books are London Calling and Never Apologise, Never Explain.