Category Archives: New York State Mysteries

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Expired Listings by D.M. Barr follows Dana Black, a smart but emotionally damaged realtor. Someone is murdering realtors from Dana’s realty and all the clues point to her as the murderer. She is afraid to admit where she actually was, since she uses the empty listings for meetings with her kinky lover Dare.

Dana was abandoned by her mother to the care of her grandmother as a young child and has never recovered from the trauma. She is jealous of her older sister, Melanie, who was raised by their mother and is also the big seller at the realty office.

As the police begin to focus on Dana, she hires a private detective to help clear her name and find the true murderer. She and Melanie are put in serious danger before the murderer is unmasked and Dana seems finally able to move on and heal.

I do not typically read erotica but here it serves the purpose of illuminating Dana’s emotional damage and the scars left by a lifetime of abandonment. The characters are believable and I found myself thoroughly engaged in Dana’s life.

Highly Recommended.

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The Turnbull Murders is the second in R.J. Koreto’s Wren Fontaine series. Wren has taken a job renovating a mansion on an island in the New York Harbor. The house has been bought by a movie star and he and his entourage are filming on the island as Wren works. Very soon after Nicky Tallon, Saffron, Thalia and all the other actors arrive, a PR rep Beebee is found dead. The coffee was poisoned by fentanyl and because it was Saffron’s drink, the police assume she was the target.

Several people within the entourage have secrets. Wren and Hadley, who is catering the food for the movie people, painstakingly uncover the secrets at the same time they delve into the secrets of the house. The story behind it is that Captain Turnbull, who built it, murdered a male servant for developing a relationship with his sister and then escaped to sea. Needless to say, the reality was a lot more complicated.

A second murder occurs and then a third is attempted. But Wren, despite her often repeated statement that she is not good with people, figures everything out.

I read the first book and I think this second one is the better story. But both are interesting and I plan to read the third. The use of an architect as the amateur detective is unusual and Wren’s unraveling the mysteries based on patterns connected to the houses is interesting. Recommended.

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The Greenleaf Murders : a Historical House Mystery, is the first in a new series by R. J. Koreto and it has a unique focus; the restoration of an old house.

Wren Fontaine is an architect with a focus on the restoration of historic mansions. The company, run by her father, is hired to restore the Greenleaf House. Besides the usual electrical and plumbing problems, Wren must work around Aunt Agnes, a woman in her nineties, who is still living in the house and has the right to live there for the rest of her life.

Stephen Greenleaf is very cagey about the eventual fate of the house and concerns abound that a firm known for cutting corners will take over the renovations and turn the house into a hotel. When the representative of the company is found shot to death with an antique gun, the stakes immediately increase tenfold. Then, in a review of the attic, the skeleton of a young woman is discovered in an old trunk. The body dates from almost a hundred years in the past – but the victim was shot with the same gun.

Greenleaf family secrets and family scandals soon embroil Wren in the investigation. The house holds the answers.

Unusual setting and focus. Recommended.

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After a week spent in the Mediterranean (more on that later) and the weekend immediately after at Malice Domestic (one of the major writing conferences) I am finally back to my regular schedule.

The Burmese Kitten: An Emma Grant Mystery

When Emma Grant’s best friend decides to move out to live with her partner, Emma Grant advertises for a female roommate to share her apartment. Instead, two men show up. The handsome polished Bob Appleton and the slovenly and abrasive student Steve Gorey. Although she refuses them the room, both men begin cycling in and out of her life.

But Emma has other problems to worry about. Her partner, and uncle, wants to expand her business, the Empire Assurance Company. And more seriously, there is a fire at a house Emma’s company insures; a fire which is quickly determined as arson. Then two bodies are discovered in the ruins. By the time Emma works through the various threads and solves the murders, we have seen greed, antiquities smuggling, prostitution and more.

This is a fairly long book. I also found the murderer pretty easy to identify. But the characters are both believable and interesting and the scenes of Albany at this time are fascinating. Recommended.