When a young girl goes missing in the Colorado mountains, Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, go on the hunt for her, unfortunately discovering the girl’s body in a shallow grave and her dog with a bullet wound of her own.
The wounded dog is brought to the local vet, a single dad whose daughter was a good friend of the murdered girl. Mattie suspects she knows more than she is telling.
When Belle, the dog evacuates envelopes filled with cocaine, the case takes on a whole new dimension. Mattie stays the course, putting herself in danger, to solve the murder and Save others from being mrdered.
Recommended. Mattie and Robo are a great team and the setting is well delineated. I will be reading others.
Hooker Avenue, by Jode Millman, takes place in Poughkeepsie, New York. Since I live close by, have lived in the Hudson Valley most of my life, and attended college in Poughkeepsie, this is familiar territory.
The mystery follows several characters. Jessie Martin, Det Ebony Jones and Lissie Sexton. Jess, a disgraced lawyer, sees a shiny flash in her headlights one rainy night. Lissie is trapped in a storm drain and in danger of drowning. This event begins a chain that links the three women together in the hunt for a serial killer.
Lissie in particular is a captivating, although not particularly likable, character. Severely beaten, she narrowly escapes the killer. But, as a prostitute with a rap sheet, she is dismissed until Ebony ties the beating to a string of missing women.
Exciting and enjoyable. My only criticism is that the wrap up could have been tightened up.
A Murder of Furies, the third in the Bronze Age Crete series, will be released January 31.
In this outing, Ancient Egypt plays a large role.
A minor prince seeks the hand of Hele, the High Priestess’s daughter. She has turned him down multiple times but he won’t take no for an answer. He arrives in Knossos to press his suit in person. While he is there, Martis discovers that the prince is allying himself with Khoranos, the High Priestess’s son, who is planning to take the throne.
And then the High Priestess is murdered! Martis suspects the Egyptians.
I don’t know if this could have happened but I thought it might be possible. Crete and Egypt were trading partners and some time after the time frame in which this story takes place, Ramses appealed to Crete for help in stopping the Sea Peoples, the pirates who attacked Egypt regularly. We know, therefore, that there was regular contact between the two.
When this mystery takes place, Hatshepsut, a woman, was the pharaoh of Egypt. Although women enjoyed a comparatively high status, there are very few women pharaohs. Hatshepsut was the daughter, the sister, and the wife of a king so her bloodline was impeccable.
The daughter of Thutmose I, she ruled jointly with her brother/husband, Thutmose III. She reigned for over 20 years and is generally regarded as a successful pharaoh.She reestablished trade networks that had been disrupted during a previous war and although was engaged in warfare in the early part of her reign, oversaw a long and prosperous era. She also embarked on many building projects.
She was almost lost to history since her cartouche was removed from her monuments. Her brother, Thutmose III, did not remove her cartouche until the end of his reign. Since by the little we know, the relationship between Thutmose and Hatshepsut was a good one, it is suggested that his son, Amenhotep II was the defacer.
Not much is known about her. She had one daughter and seems to have been a good ruler. A mummy believed to be hers has been discovered. An examination shows she had diabetes, cancer and bad teeth.
As even many layman know, the Egyptians married siblings, nieces, and daughters. The accepted explanation is that only another royal had the proper bloodline. Another theory is that this was an effort to keep the power concentrated in one family’s hands.. One suggestion I find particularly interesting is that, because of a woman’s connection to a Supreme Goddess, a holdover from the Goddess worship of earlier times, only a female member of the royal family could give legitimacy to the throne and to her relative’s rule.
Our Lady of the Overlook, by R.L. Carpentier III is a police procedural.
Mike Ellis is a rookie cop, working under the shadow of his father. Charles Ellis had been the police chief in the little town for years.
Now it looks like history is repeating itself. Mike Ellis finds the body of a woman murdered, at the overlook, just like his father had forty years ago. Although Mike’s investigation takes a heavy toll on him, he pursues it to the end. Mike’s character evolves and changes as he faces truths that are, at best, uncomfortable.
The mystery takes a little while to get started but once it does, I couldn’t put the book down. I’m glad Carpentier has planned a trilogy as I have already ordered the second one in the series.
Hana Babic îs a quiet, unassuming woman who works in the library. (Not a librarian, actually. No degree.) One day a detective arrives with bad news. Hana’s best friend Amina is dead under mysterious circumstances. Amina has left her grandchild to Hana.
Hana knows she had to discover the identity of Amina’s murderer or the eight-year-old child will never be safe. Hana has the skills to do it for she is more than she appears. During the Serbian/Bosnian conflict, Hana survived when the rest of her family were murdered. She became a partisan, known as the Night Mora, a lethal mythological creature. Now Hana must become the Night Mora again to protect the child and finally find closure for the horrific experiences she endured during the war.
Simon Brett is a long time mystery author, most famous for his Charles Paris series. Death in the Dressing Room is the 22nd Fethering mystery.
Carole, a very proper English woman, does not care for the theater. But her best friend, Jude, who counts actress among her many jobs, does. She attends a new play based on a classic television show, mainly because she knows one of the principal actors although Jude did watch the show.
But when Jude goes back stage to see Drake, she finds him dead on the floor, smacked in the head by a prop. There are many suspects, both those in the play as well as the stage manager. Together Carole and Jude investigate.
I’m not a big fan of the Fethering mysteries but I enjoyed this one. Carole particularly is a fun character although I think she would be annoying in real life. The mystery connects to an older mystery (originally declared an overdose)and as in all good mysteries, there are a lot of red herrings and the murderer is a surprise. Recommended.
Had a great time at Mocha Lisa’s on Saturday evening with my fellow Mavens: Amy Patrica Meade, Frankie Bailey, Liz Irish, Chris Keefer, Jacqueline Boulden, and Shelley Jones. Great coffee, great pastries (just ask my husband) and a wonderful and engaged crowd. I also picked up some new books. Expect reviews.
This week I read The Last Wizard’s Ball, by Charlaine Harris. It is number six, and listed as the final volume in the series. I hope not since it ended on several cliffhangers.
Lizbeth Rose accompanies her sister Felicia to the Wizard’s ball in the Holy Russian Empire. The ball is similar to the Regency London season, a chance to see and be seen. Since Felicia is a powerful death wizard, and beautiful as well, she is much in demand. But, on one of their outings, someone fires an arrow which strikes Felix, another death wizard and Felicia’s mentor. Another attack occurs at a ball, and then another. At the same time, Lizbeth Rose experiences several odd conversations. What is going on?
War is brewing in Europe. It seems far away to Lizbeth but the Germans and Japanese are represented at these events, and they are desperate to add Felicia to their stable of wizards. Lizbeth realizes her husband and her sister are keeping secrets from her, serious, earth changing secrets. Then Felicia, who is only sixteen, does something so reckless, so dangerous, and so earth shattering, it changes everything.
This past week I read Deadly Hours, four novellas centered around a cursed pocket watch.
In the first, Kearsley’s mystery about the pirate who participated in the sacking of Cartagena and melted his cursed gold down to make a pocket watch named La Sirene, starts the series off with the background on the dangerous timepiece. The watch is reputed to bring bad luck and death to all who own it – and it quickly seems to be working.
In the second part Huber’s Lady Darcy is drawn into an investigation by a local criminal who is terrified by the number of deaths in Edinburgh. He is ill himself and terrified he too will die. At first, Lady Darcy dismisses the connection to a mysterious, and supposedly cursed, pocket watch with a mermaid, but she and her husband are soon are its trail.
Trent’s lady undertaker in Victorian England is working on a project to relocate a number of coffins when a murder takes place in the wealthy area. After other murders occur, all seeming to take place when the pocket watch inexplicably stops, the family that owns the watch can’t get rid of it fast enough.
The final novella takes the story to World War II. When the man who owned the cover for the watch is murdered, and that cover stolen, it seems like a simple robbery. But other murders of people who know something about the watch soon follow. Somebody is determined to own that timepiece. At the same time, transmissions in code are being sent to Germany, drawing the attention of two men from M15.
All of these novellas are well-written and highly entertaining. This was like have four books, instead of one. Highly recommended.
The two books I read this past week, to my surprise, addressed the same topic, – the collapse of democracy – but the presentation couldn’t be more different.
In Enemies Domestic, by John Dedakis, the United States government is threatened from within.
Lark Chadwick, newly pregnant, is chosen by POTUS to serve as liasion with the press. An obnoxious reporter, discovering Lark’s pregnancy, asks if she will have an abortion and then spins her “I don’t know” into yes. Lark is subsequently abducted by two people who plan to hold her until the birth of the baby. Lark escapes, the two are arrested, but the situation worsens. The President is arrested for treason.
Dedakis takes current events and draws them out into a logical, although somewhat implausible scenario. A terrifying dystopian mystery. Recommended.
The second book I read, And Intrigue of Witches, follows Sydney Taylor, a black woman with a mane of bright red hair.
Suddenly laid off from her D.C. job, she goes home to Robbinsville, only to be offered a job searching for an artifact. Part Treasure Hunt (think National Treasure with Nicholas Cage), part historical fiction, part fantasy, the story veers into a hundred years battle between good and evil. The Daughters of Hathor are witches, and the rightful rulers. When the Opposition is in power, dictatorship, cruelty, and violence are the result.
Magic, time travel, and of course murder are all mixed together in a novel that resists classification. The inventiveness behind the tale is breath taking. But this story will not be for everyone.
Revenge in Rubies is the second in the Harriet Gordon Mysteries.
When the young wife of a British officer is murdered in her bedroom, the military closes ranks to keep Inspector Curran out. Harriet realizes her friendship with the victim’s sister-in-law might prove useful and she calls upon the bereaved family to offer comfort. Other murders quickly follow and both Harriet and Curran are soon in the killer’s sights.
Both of them must deal with their own demons before they can solve this mystery.
Another winner from A. M. Stuart. I love this series. Highly recommended.
I also read Dance of Bones by J. A. Jance.
Big Bad John Lassiter is convicted of the murder of his best friend and partner Amos Warren and sent to prison. Thirty years later his daughter, who he has never met, wants the case reopened. Brandon Walker is reluctant but agrees to look into it and finds that there is more than a reasonable doubt that Lassiter is innocent.
A parallel story involving Lani, Walker’s adopted daughter, intersperses the main story. The stories and rites of the Tohono O’odham tribe are a big part of this half of the novel.
The two stories meet, separate, meet separate again and again, finally joining for a blowout ending.
This is the first that draw J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker together in one book, which is interesting.
Recommended with reservations. There are a lot of characters. And, with the tribal stories, and the two halves of the mystery all happening at the same time, it starts to get a little confusing. But there is no doubt there is a lot going on and it keeps a reader’s interest.
