‘Kill You Twice’ by Chelsea Cain

Published by Minotaur Books,
August, 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-312-61978-7

Archie Sheridan, a detective at the Major Case Task Force in Portland, Oregon, for years had headed what was termed the Beauty Killer Task Force, dedicated to tracking down and bringing to justice a megalomaniac serial killer whose victims were tortured and killed in gruesome ways, graphically described.  Their target, Gretchen Lowell, a stunning blonde who claims she had killed more than two hundred people, almost claimed Archie as one of her victims, but despite slowly torturing him over a 10-day period [during which time, among other things, she removed his spleen - - without anesthesia, of course], she let him live.  She is now locked up in the forensic psychiatric services ward of the State Hospital.

Six years later, now forty-one, Archie has only recently returned to work after two years on medical leave.  He is called to a murder scene as the book opens; soon after another body is discovered with striking similarities.  As Archie says about Portland, it is “known for its blush-tinted scenery, and its serial killers.”  There is still a strong connection between Archie and Gretchen, and ultimately he accedes to her calls asking him to come see her, at which point she says she can help him find the killer.  His scars, which still itch and sometimes bleed, are a constant reminder of her brutality, but he can no sooner escape them than he can the power and sexual pull she still exerts over him.

The characters in the series are vividly drawn, and fully fleshed out.  Susan Ward, reappearing three months after being fired from the local newspaper, the Herald, still very attracted to Archie; Susan’s mother, Bliss, a former hippie, whose “eyes looked sparkly and spacey, like an anesthetized rabbit;” Henry, Archie’s best friend and partner, himself recovering from a narrow escape from death, and trying without much success to keep his relationship with a fellow cop under wraps; Leo Reynolds, an attorney and the son of a drug kingpin whose sister’s killer Archie had caught; among others.

In trademark fashion, as the investigation proceeds and the solution is in sight, the tight plotting grabs the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go till the end, and the author pulls off one unexpected twist after another.  And lest you think the book is entirely comprised of graphic violence, be assured that there are regular doses of humor in these pages.

Parenthetically, in case you’re wondering, the title of this book comes from a couplet:  “Sweet as sugar, hard as ice, hurt me once, I’ll kill you twice.”  If this is your introduction to the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell series, you’ll understand it better after you read the book – not necessarily an easy read, certainly, but a highly recommended one.  The next book in the series, “Let Me Go,’ is due out in August of 2013, and I for one can’t wait!

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Reviewer: Gloria Feit

  
Chelsea Cain  Journalism, that was my college goal at the University of California, at Irvine. I also went to graduate school in journalism at the University of Iowa where I wrote a column for The Daily Iowan. But there was one thing about journalism that Chelsea says she didn’t like at all: talking to strangers. Writing books, on the other hand, requires talking to far fewer people. And Iowa City, home of the lauded Iowa Writers Workshop, was full of people writing books. Then she moved from Iowa to Portland to New York and back to Portland with brief stays in Florida and Pennsylvania, and in the process wrote a dozen books over the next ten years, but not all were published.

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.

‘The Windermere Witness’ by Rebecca Tope

Published by Allison & Busby,
26^th November 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-1259-5

Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown has moved to the Lake District and opened a florists, Persimmon Petals. Despite recent personal upheaval and her rather eccentric parents who run a B & B Simmy is finding it good to be living nearer to them. And being retained to provide the flowers for the wedding of a millionaire's daughter should ensure even more business. So things are going well.

But Simmy has hardly got back to the shop after arranging the flowers at the wedding venue before hearing the news of the death of the bride’s brother Mark Baxter.  As Simmy had spoken to Mark just as she drove away form the hotel, both the police and the family want to speak with her.  Simmy feels she has little to tell them, but in their grief and a desire to understand how he came to die Simmy finds herself drawn into the lives of family. And, what a family! It’s a hot bed of secrets and scandals.  As Simmy becomes reluctantly more immersed in their lives she also begins to wonder about the marriage of the young Bridget to a man twenty-five years her senior, and more perplexing the fact that he is always surrounded by a close-knit group of bachelor friends, who show no sign of leaving the newly weds alone.

A further death pulls Simmy even further into the lives of the Baxters, and despite trying to distance herself she becomes even more involved in their lives, and convinced that one of these friends is the killer. But which one?

This is my favourite type of mystery - a really good ‘whodunit’?  I have actually never thought of the role of a florist, but there is one lovely passage that gave me food for thought, when Simmy says that people send flowers out of love, congratulation, apology, welcome, sympathy and romance, and she sometimes wondered why everybody wasn’t a florist.  I agree.  Reading this book I got to wish I had been a florist!  Highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

  

Rebecca Tope is the author of three popular murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, Drew Slocombe, Undertaker, and Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds. Rebecca grew up on farms, first in Cheshire then in Devon, and now lives in rural Herefordshire on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains.

Besides "ghost writer" of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme. Rebecca is also the proprietor of a small press - Praxis Books. This was established in 1992

‘Cold Feet’ by Karen Pullen

Published by Five Star Publishing,
January 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2637-6

Special Agent Stella Lavender works undercover. It’s fair to say that her job is stressful, she negotiates the purchase of drugs from paranoid drug dealers. So the opportunity to rest and enjoy an afternoon wedding with her grandmother Fern, is something of a respite from her challenging job.  Although sixty-two year old Fern is far from restful, being curvy, sexy and young at heart.

However, Stella’s restful afternoon is short-lived when she discovers the bride dead.   But the afternoon is not a total write-off as it appears that Fern has made a conquest.

Lieutenant Anselmo Morales takes over the investigation but seems keen to hear Stella’s views.  So who would kill Justine Bradley? Well the groom’s former girlfriend is obsessively stalking him, and it appears that Justine, although describes as an angel by the grieving groom, had actually no friends. But more disturbing is the appearance of Stella’s ex-finance Hogan Leith!

In Cold Feet, Karen Pullen draws the reader into a fascinating story that alternates between Stella’s life as a drug agent and her  investigation into who killed Justine, and why.  But when her undercover life crosses over into her personal life Stella knows that matters have taken a serious turn.  Can she unravel the complex situation and ensure that those she loves will not be hurt?

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Karen Pullen grew up in Riverton, New Jersey and moved to St. Petersburg, Florida when she was 16. In college she majored in math, also took a dozen courses in the English Department. Taught math for two years., the hardest most exhausting job in the world. She decided to train for a different job, and went back to school to earn a PhD in operations research. Five years later, she took a job with a systems engineering consulting firm in the Boston area. Married she moved to a small town in North Carolina where she opened a B & B.  Cold Feet is her first published book.

‘Poisoned Pairings’ by Lesley A. Diehl

Published by Mainly Murder Press,
May 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-9836823-5-6

It’s always interesting to learn something new and ‘fracking’ was certainly a new one on me. To the brewers in Butternut Valley the threat of a hydraulic fracturing technique to extract gas from underground by shattering shale was a very real threat. 

Hera Knightsbridge and her many of her fellow microbrewers fear it will pollute the water, their most precious ingredient, as well as destroy the beauty of the valley.

To add to her worries on the eve of the big pairing event a student taking part is found dead in Hera’s brewery. Contacting Evan Risley who was in charge of the students but was unaccountable not present that evening far from being apologetic informs Hera that he has been in touch with the Dean of the College and the pairings event may be cancelled.

Confident that the Assistant Deputy Sheriff Jake Ryan, who is also Hera’s lover, will get to the bottom of the murder, Hera is aghast when Jake is then called away, and things for Hera go from bad to worse.  With business problems and family secrets, Hera is beset on all sides.  Although the arrival in town of an attractive guy who is opening a restaurant specializing in Tuscan food, may take Hera’s mind off her absent lover.

Apart from being a good mystery that kept me guessing I enjoyed learning about pairing.  I am a wine drinker and have never drunk beer, but such is the power of the storyteller that I found myself longing for a beer, and I enjoyed the references to different foods being paired with beers.

The cast of characters of Libertyville are well-fleshed out, and I see that this book is a sequel to A Deadly Draught which I now must read.  But I do so hope that there will be more books featuring Hera Knightsbridge.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Lesley A. Diehl  retired from her life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed her country roots by moving to a small cottage in the Butternut River Valley in upstate New York.  In the winter she migrates to old Florida--cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office.  Back north, she devotes her afternoons to writing and, when the sun sets, relaxing on the bank of her trout stream, sipping tea or a local microbrew.

‘Cold Death’ by Michael Fowler

Published by Caffeine Nights, 2012.
ISBN 978-1-907565-28-1

This novel is the second in the series featuring Detective Sergeant Hunter Kerr and Detective Constable Grace Marshall of the South Yorkshire Police, the first being Heart of the Demon, reviewed in Mystery People December 2012. It also involves Hunter’s father, originally from Glasgow, who moved to Yorkshire with his wife many years before.

It begins in 1971 in Glasgow’s East End with the brutal murder of a young mother and her daughter by three gangsters. It then moves in time and place to 2008 and Yorkshire where Hunter, on holiday with his wife, witnesses a violent argument involving his father which is shortly followed by a violent road-rage incident in which Hunter’s father and mother are seriously injured and hospitalised. Hunter’s father is not forthcoming about the incident. Meanwhile Grace is called to a lake where the body of a young Asian woman has been found; she has been murdered. Hunter leads the investigation on this case as his team try and establish who she is and who might have been involved in her death. But at the same time, it seems that the three gangsters have now, after many years, come together and are on a killing spree; three retired detectives are murdered and events are moving closer and closer to Hunter’s father. But why? What is the connection? Hunter is inevitably drawn into this situation so that Grace finds herself bearing much of the responsibility for the investigation into the death of the murdered woman.

The author is a retired police inspector with extensive experience in CID and the Vice and Drugs Squads. It is this experience which provides Cold Night with its most outstanding feature, the strong sense of authenticity. Details of police and forensic procedures are meticulously described and anyone who wants to know how such situations are investigated will find this book most instructive. However, there seems to have been a problem with proof-reading, particularly with regard to commas; perhaps in Hunter’s and Grace’s next investigation the author and the publishers will sort the problem out.

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Reviewer: Radmila May

Michael Fowler was born in 1957, in Rotherham, and grew up in the once industrial heartland of South Yorkshire where he still lives with his wife and two sons.  He served as a police officer for thirty-two years, both in uniform and in plain clothes, working in CID, Vice Squad and Drug Squad, and retired in 2006 in the rank of Inspector, finishing his career in charge of a busy CID department. He now writes and paints full-time.

‘The Disciple of Las Vegas’ by Ian Hamilton

Published by Sphere,
7 November 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-84744-504-9

Ava  Lee is a forensic accountant - she tracks money owed to people who have advanced money in good faith, but then found that the recipients have reneged on their commitments.

Her partner is her elderly Hong Kong based ‘Uncle’.  In this adventure Uncle is not that comfortable with working for Tommy Ordonez, the richest man in the Philippines, but having heard the facts and realising how much money it will mean if she is successful Ava says she will take the job. The story is that Tommy’s brother has messed up big time and lost $50 million. The reputation of Tommy Ordonez is on the line, which is what is worrying uncle, as loss of face could mean trouble for Ava. 

Ava tracks the money and discovers an illegal gambling ring. But tracking the money was the easy part. Now can she get it back?

To complicate her job, an old target of Ava’s is bent on revenge and a contract has been put out on her.  But tracking Ava isn’t easy, for as she tracks the money she moves from country to country. But can she outwit the contract?

Fascinating, brilliant, and compelling this is one of those books once started you cannot put down. Not to be missed. I just can’t wait for the next one.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

It was a life-threatening health scare that prompted Ian Hamilton to write his first in the series of captivating Ava Lee novels. Just two days out of hospital and recovering from surgery, Ian sat down at his computer. The name ‘Ava Lee’ came to him and the first chapter was quickly written. A few short weeks later, the first Ava Lee novel was completed. Ian is not a stranger to the literary world. He began his career as a journalist and wrote a non-fiction book in 1968, The Children’s Crusade, which was a Canadian Book-of-the-Month selection. He has written for several magazines and newspapers in Canada and the U.S., including Maclean’s, Boston Magazine, Saturday Night, the Regina Leader-Post, the Calgary Albertan, and the Calgary Herald. He has been a senior executive with the federal government, and as worked internationally as a diplomat and businessman. Although there are 40 years between books, Ian never lost his passion for writing. The years he spent travelling the world on business, spending countless hours on planes and hotels, became important influences on his writing, providing personal insights into the world of business and into the many people, places and cultures Ava Lee encounters. His inspiration for the Ava Lee series did not end when the first book was complete. About half way through writing the first book, an idea for the second book came to Ian and he built it into the plot of the first. He began writing the second book the day after the first book was finished. The same is true for the third and fourth books. Within eight months, all four books were complete. Ian secured a four-book deal from his publisher before the last two books were even read by the publisher. International rights have been sold into the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Germany and worldwide Spanish and French rights. Ian is currently working on the continuation of the Ava Lee series and has already completed books 5 and 6.
Ian lives in Burlington, Ontario with his wife Lorraine. He has four children and seven grandchildren.

‘Killing the Emperors’ by Ruth Dudley Edwards

Published in the UK by Allison and Busby,
November 2012.

ISBN: 9781590586389

This is the latest in the hilarious satirical series featuring the Baroness Troutbeck. In this series, Dudley-Edwards, through the eyes and voice of the wonderful Baroness Troutbeck, takes an amusing swipe at different establishments.  Killing the Emperors  takes on the world of modern art, and points a finger in the direction of the likes of Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin. Someone out there, namely the Russian billionaire, and art lover, Oleg Sarkosky doesn’t like this one little bit, so he has Troutbeck kidnapped, along with others who are high up in the art world. The victims are then kept Big Brother style by their captive- and here the fun and games continue. Meanwhile the Baroness’s side-kick, Robert Amiss has discovered her missing and is working with the police to find them. But will he succeed before the body count starts mounting? Enter the SAS.

Dudley Edwards is a master of satirical comedy writing. The Baroness Troutbeck is a wonderful invention and as a central character provides most of the humour. She is both classy and classless. I would love to see her in a cinematic form. As I laughed my way through this story, I thought either Joanna Lumley or Alison Steadman would be a perfect choice to bring her to life. This hilarious series, that points its funny finger at a corner of society, comes highly recommended, they are all very entertaining , and this is one of her best.
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Reviewer: Linda Regan

Ruth Dudley Edwards has been a teacher, marketing executive and civil servant and is a prize-winning biographer as well as an historian, journalist and broadcaster.  The targets of her satirical crime novels include the civil service, gentlemen’s clubs, a Cambridge college, the House of Lords, the Church of England, publishing, literary prizes and politically-correct Americans. In 2008 she won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award for Murdering Americans.  www.ruthdudleyedwards.com

Linda Regan is the author of six police procedural crime novels. She is also an actress. She holds a Masters degree in critical writing and journalism, and writes a regular column, including book reviews, for three magazines. She also presents the book-club spot on BBC Radio Kent. She is an avid reader, and welcomes the chance to read new writers.www.lindareganonline.co.uk

‘Get Rich Quick’ by Peter Doyle

Published by Dark Passage,
2012.
ISBN 978-1-891241-24-6

This novel features the exploits of Billy Glasheen, a small-time hustler and would-be music impresario in Sydney in the 1950s at a time when the city was controlled by an ‘unholy trinity of crooks, bent cops and politicians on the make.’ It begins with the murder in 1952 of Charlie Furner, an enforcer for one of Sydney’s biggest criminals, for which Ray Waters, the toughest and most corrupt cop in the Sydney police force, attempts to frame Billy, and ends in 1957 with the unmasking of Furner’s killer. But most of the book is about the Sydney scene in the years between with Billy’s dodging and diving as he becomes involved with right-wing Croatian gangs backed by some Australian politicians and shadowy US influences, jewellery heists and the changing music scene of the time, although Waters is a murky presence.

Get Rich Quick is very well-written, the author teaching writing at Macquarie University, Sydney. It richly deserved the Ned Kelly Award for First Crime Novel which it received on first publication in 1996. Billy is sharp and clever, an entertaining and attractive character full of schemes which never quite come off. I wonder if the title is actually ironic - Billy might have become richer quicker and with less trouble if he had taken up, say, tax consultancy or investment advising. But then he would never have gone on tour with Little Richard and Eddie Cochrane so perhaps he, and we, are better off after all.

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Reviewer: Radmila May

Other books by Peter Doyle: The Devil’s Jump, City of Shadows, Amaze Your Friends and Crooks Like Us

Peter Doyle was born in Maroubra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. He worked as a taxi driver, -musician, and teacher before writing Get Rich Quick, which won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Novel in 1997. Its sequel, Amaze Your Friends, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 1998, followed in 2001 by The Devil’s Jump, the third book in Doyle’s Billy Glasheen series. Doyle lives in Newtown, where he divides his time between writing and teaching. He is also a part-time curator at Sydney’s Justice and Police Museum.

‘The Panther’ by Nelson Demille

Published by Sphere,
November 2012. 
ISBN: 978-1-84744-147-8

FBI agents John Corey and his wife Kate are assigned to Yemen to track down a high ranking Al Quaeda operative who is thought to be the mastermind behind several deaths, including the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen several years before.  The terrorist operates under the title “the Panther” and John and Kate are ostensibly sent out to hunt and capture him, but John knows that this is only a front for an assassination operation.

He and his wife set forth, though it is felt under slight duress on his part as he has been to the Yemen before and knows that it will not be an easy job.  The sensitive political issues within the country mean that John and Kate don’t even know who their enemies are and even their friends (the CIA for example) can be dangerous.  Finding out who is on their side proves the challenge and John, well versed in the forked tongues of international conspiracy, is constantly questioning who to trust.

There is intrigue, double dealing, bangs and crashes and a little bit of romance and humour in the narrative which serves the storyline well. 

This book is over 600 pages long and whilst it is full of details about the Middle Eastern conflict, which could have been more lightly covered, it is not slow or in any way a chore to read.  The characters (especially that of John Corey, whose inner monologue is mostly entertaining if occasionally overdone) are quite nicely drawn in the writing and even the terrorists are not as two dimensional as is regularly the case for a thriller of this type. 

Blockbuster in size, but more intelligent in depth and storyline than is normal for this genre, this is a storming read and quite exhausting.  The narrative picks up pace in the last quarter and gallops towards a satisfying but still nicely open ending.  A good read, but, this is a heavy tome to carry around. 

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Reviewer: Amanda Brown

Nelson Demille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943. He moved as a child with his family to Long Island. In high school, he played football and ran track. He spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army and attended Officer Candidate School. He was a First Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69) and saw action as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. He was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.  Returning to the States he went back to Hofstra University where he received his degree in Political Science and History. He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and still lives on Long Island. DeMille's earlier books were NYPD detective novels. His first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978 and is still in print, as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of The Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, and American Mensa. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College. He is the author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, The Gate House, The Lion and The Panther. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block and has contributed short stories, book reviews, and articles to magazines and newspapers.

Memory of Bones by Alex Connor

Published by Quercus,
15 November 2012.
ISBN: 978-0-85738-962-6

When Leon Golding comes into possession of the ‘long lost skull’ of  Spain’s most famous artist Francisco Goya, he is ecstatic.  Leon has devoted his life to solving the meaning of Goya’s black paintings.  Now his patience will be rewarded and the art world will finally recognise the name of Leon Golding.   His brother Ben, a

reconstructive plastic surgeon at the Whitechapel Hospital in London, worries that maybe Ben is heading for another breakdown, or not taking his medication.

Unfortunately, in Leon’s excitement at getting the skull authenticated, the news has leaked out, and alerted some very rich and powerful collectors who will stop at nothing- not even murder - to own this most prized piece of art history.

Alex Connor paints a grim picture of the ruthlessness of collectors in the art world.  With the skull recognised as a money spinner, even those who can’t afford it jostle to become a middle man for they foresee big commissions for the one in a negotiating position.  But they haven’t reckoned on death. This skull has been missing for nearly two centuries it certainly now has some adventures as the Golding brothers try to keep it out of reach of obsessed collectors and the head of the powerful Ortega family.

With well-fleshed out characters, Alex Connor weaves a gripping tale of greed, deception and murder.  Culminating in a marvelously satisfying twist, this book is highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes  

There  are two earlier books The Rembrandt Secret and  A Legacy of Death

Alex Connor is an art historian and working artist.  Her interest in painting and art history has now sparked her interest in writing thrillers set in the art world. The first was The Rembrandt Secret about Rembrandt; the second has just been published, Legacy of Blood, is about Hogarth, and the third is to be published in August 2012 about Goya. Alex first started painting and writing after she was stalked and beaten up. During her convalescence she studied hard, and finally reached the point where she was able to write about all her passions, bringing in her insider knowledge. In order to get into the mind set of the artist about which she is writing Alex paints one of their pictures. She painted Rembrandt’s Old Woman, when she was writing The Rembrandt Secret, and did a copy of Hogarth’s Self Portrait when she was writing Legacy of Blood.

Alex has talked on TV and Radio about many facts that are new to the public. She was a presenter on This Morning for a strand called PAST MASTERS which was based on her non fiction book on art The Wrong Side of the Canvas which was published in UK and USA about artists’ lives.   For more details about Alex visit her web site

www.alexconnor.com