Category: Reviews

Crooked Lane
Published September 15, 2026
Reviewed by Mary-Jane Oltarzewski

A Field Guide to Death and Deceit is an entertaining, character-driven novel, the second outing for Harry, a widowed seventy-something anthropologist, and his caregiver-turned research assistant-turned fellow amateur sleuth, Emma. They met in the previous novel, after Harry broke his hip and – with some reluctance – employed Emma, a former ICU nurse, to look after him. By the time he’d healed from his injury, the insightful yet cranky old Boomer and the relentlessly cheerful Zoomer had solved the murder of one of Harry’s neighbors, in the process becoming minor local celebrities and fast friends, who engage in a lot of fond intergenerational bickering.

Continue reading “A Field Guide to Death & Deceit by Michelle L. Cullen”

Penzler / Mysterious
Published September 15, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Before we get to the details, a quick note: you can count on anything Gary Disher writes. You’d think given the dozens of crime novels he’s written, he might start phoning it in, but no. He continues to surprise. As for Sanctuary…

Grace (one of her many names) has been a skilled thief for most of her young life. Raised in foster homes, she started her life of crime in her teens along with Adam, an older foster brother, then got connected to a crooked cop who controlled her life until he was out of the picture. Now she’s on her own, moving around Australia looking for her next score. At a convention for collectors of rare stamps, she’s hoping to nab something valuable enough to fence, but when she sees Adam is also there, she has to bolt. He’s been looking for her ever since she not only dumped him, she stole a valuable watch from him, and he’s out for revenge.

Continue reading “Sanctuary by Gary Disher”

Soho
Published September 1, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Reading James Sallis is like reading poetry, or having a dream that is vivid and tactile but yet somehow elusive. That’s the feeling evoked in his last, posthumous novel, Backwater. Though it is ostensibly a police procedural set in a small southern community – a backwater – it is really a series of ruminations about life, death, and music from the perspective of the narrator, a retired cop turned jazz musician named Bishop. He has reluctantly returned to his hometown, Anne’s Ferry, after his old partner tracked him down playing music in a bar and asked him to consult on a puzzling case. He now runs the cop shop in Anne’s Ferry and they have an odd one, an abandoned car, full of blood, but no body. Can he give their small police force a hand? He agrees, but once he gets to Anne’s Ferry, there’s another mystery: his partner has left town, and it’s clear he isn’t coming back.

Continue reading “Backwater by James Sallis”

Bantam
Published September 8, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

In the second novel featuring Inspector Raquel Laing after Back to the Garden (2022), the San Francisco inspector catches a murder that has a left a gruesome story behind. The victim of a drug killing had been shot in the gut. After dragging himself some distance to go by the blood trail, he was shot again, this time fatally. Whoever killed him was not only cruel, he wanted to send a message: This is what could happen if you cross me. There’s very little to go on, and not much official interest in pursuing the murder of a minor drug dealer, until Raquel encounters a case with a similar M.O. and begins to sense a pattern. It’s a pattern that will take her back into her troubled childhood, and even into the life of her agoraphobic sister Dee, thanks to a DNA test.

Continue reading “Those Who Are Gone by Laurie R. King”

Linda Leith Publishing/Literary Press Group of Canada
Published September 5, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

While murder isn’t completely uncommon in Winnipeg, the identity of the body confronting Detective Michael Shelter is unusual. The victim, found with his throat slit in an upscale vacation rental, must be a Hutterite, to go by his traditional clothing. While Manitoba is home to many members of this Anabaptist sect, they live apart from modern society in agrarian communities and are strictly pacifists. They don’t generally get themselves murdered in the city. Shelter will have his work cut out for him, teasing out what happened and who is responsible.

Continue reading “The Faithful by Don MacDonald”

Simon & Schuster
Published September 1, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Things are going well for Seattle detective Chelsey Calhoun. She’s expecting her first child and she and her husband are delighted. But when she investigates the case of an Asian woman who has been stabbed to death, and her teenage daughter missing, she throws herself into the disturbing case. It all starts with discovering the woman who called herself Anne was really Rika Takahashi, clearly on the run from something or someone. As she pieces the clues together, we travel back to the past of the murdered woman.

Continue reading “Before You Were Anne by Emiko Jean”

Minotaur
Published September 1, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Two students at Oxford University in post-war Britain are like chalk and cheese. Ginevra (“Gin”) comes from a wealthy, titled family with a huge mansion and connections; she’s socially adept and attractive, but a serious scholar determined to make her mark. Sidney is a scholarship grad student who came from up North and, while he’s a conscientious student of the classics, he has never felt totally accepted at the ancient university. Memories from his war work, aiding the French resistance, are continuing to haunt his sleep when a man he hoped to forget turns up: his old handler. A Soviet spy is active at Oxford, and he has poisoned a librarian who might have stumbled on him. Sidney has to flush the traitor out – and Gin is going to help, with Sidney’s experienced guidance in spy craft.

Continue reading “The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies by Kate Westbury”

What’s your pleasure? In August we reviewed mysteries and thrillers that can be classed as historical, cozy, procedural, amateur sleuth, suspense, and private investigator (though not all at once). The genre has something for every taste. We hope you’ll find something here that looks tempting, with more to come in September.

Olesya Lyuzna, Liars in Paradise – “… there are fewer and fewer outlets in which reporters can hone and display their skills, both in fiction and the real world. Fortunately for readers and writers alike, these characters survive and thrive in solid historical fiction like Liars in Paradise, the second of Olesya Lyuzna’s darkly glamorous Jazz Age novels to feature Ginny Dugan, the advice-columnist-turned-crime-reporter-turned-private detective.” Mary-Jane Oltarzewski

Robyn Gigl, All We Hide – “While All We Hide addresses prejudice and violence facing a minority community, it is primarily a well-plotted mystery with enough twists and turns and character development to please any reader who is open to a story with a protagonist whose lived experience may be a little bit different from their own – and a lot alike.” Barbara Fister

Victoria Gilbert, Death on the Books “… an entertaining addition to a long-running series, and Amy Muir proves she’s a character with plenty of staying power.” Meredith Frazier

Sarah Pekkanen, The Women in White – “…the story, inspired by actual parapsychology experiments that were widespread during the cold war, is compelling enough to make it worthwhile for readers to suspend disbelief.” Barbara Fister

Richard Russo, Under the Falls – “This short novel has the hallmarks of Russo’s fiction. It’s set in a rusting town in rural upstate New York, where the author grew up, and features a cast of damaged characters who don’t always act in their own best interest, their decisions sideswiped by past injuries and close but complicated relationships…” Barbara Fister

Lucy Connelly, Death at a Scottish Halloween – “A plot-driven novel, Death at a Scottish Halloween is a quick read, but Connelly does a nice job of keeping the mystery complicated enough to be interesting. ” Meredith Frazier

Kevin Wade, One Good Eye – “This title is the second in the series. While it is not necessary to read Johnny Careless first as Wade fills in enough backstory for this to work as a standalone, I would strongly recommend doing so, if for no other reason than you don’t want to miss out on another great read.” Julie Campbell

William Kent Krueger, God’s Country – “This was a difficult book to read. The writing and the characterizations are wonderful as always, but Cork is called on to decide which wolf to feed, and while what he goes through is necessary, you don’t always like him. And this was, by far, the most violent of all the books in the series.” Julie Campbell

Nina Simon, My Sister is Going to Kill Me – “Mandy has organized a rafting expedition through the Grand Canyon… As the group sets out, they soon learn what the Canyon and its rushing river have in store for them – a challenge made more complicated when the murders begin.” Barbara Fister

Archer Sullivan, Brimstone Hollow – “[a] fast-paced, dynamic story. The circumstances become as tangled, and as dangerous, as a nest of vipers as she seeks to understand how all these deaths and secrets are related.” Mary-Jane Oltarzewski

Jackie McMahon, The Cloak and Dagger Club – “Set in London in 1930, The Cloak and Dagger Club plays homage to Golden Age mysteries and The Detection Club, using both as inspiration to create a clever, fun-to-read novel.” Meredith Frazier

Katarina Bivald, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die Quietly – “The third entry in this mystery series offers a traditional plot: a murder victim who nobody liked, a number of plausible suspects who are mostly nearly as unpleasant, and an investigation led largely by a gifted amateur who ponders clues and finally assembles them all to reveal whodunnit.” Barbara Fister

Elizabeth DeLozier, The Whitechapel Full Moon Society – “Since it’s set in London in 1888, it should come as no surprise that The Whitechapel Full Moon Society is about Jack the Ripper — at least in part. But author Elizabeth DeLozier has found a unique angle to give her tale, and her angle includes, in part, remembering the victims… ” Meredith Frazier

Alice Feeney, My Husband’s Wife – “If you like twisty, disorienting thrillers, you will love this one… This was one of the most disorienting books I’ve ever read, and as we reflect with the characters on the underlying themes, it provided a lot of food for thought.” Sharon Mensing

Flatiron Books, Pine & Cedar
Published January 20, 2026 (hardcover), January 19, 2027 (trade paperback)
Reviewed by Sharon Mensing

If you like twisty, disorienting thrillers, you will love this one. It had some aspects that I really liked, others I didn’t, but ultimately it kept me interested and engaged.

There are alternating short chapters, moving from one character’s perspective to another’s and from timeframe to timeframe. The first two chapters introduce two characters who are seemingly unrelated, although it’s obvious from the get-go that Feeney plans to bring it all together in the end. These two highly disparate perspectives and characters create an unsettling, off-balance atmosphere that continues throughout the book. The only thing that is not confusing about the tone this sets is that it quickly becomes clear that people are not who they seem to be. As the book continues and the ground seems to shift underneath the characters and the reader, this becomes either fascinating or annoying depending upon the reader’s predilection. Because the true nature of the characters changes so frequently, the characters are never fully developed. Although we are allowed inside the heads of the various players, the book is ultimately plot driven…not character driven.

Feeney does a beautiful job with the descriptions of a small seaside Cornwall village and the house (Spyglass) where much of the action takes place. Themes of revenge, how far parents will go to keep their children safe, infidelity, and what might happen both personally and sociologically if we knew the dates of our deaths play out during a very fast-paced complex plot. The last (pre-knowledge of our deathday) brought to mind Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, although I found Feeney’s take more compelling.

There is a great deal of foreshadowing in the book, some of it repetitive so the reader won’t really miss it. But the twists come so fast and furiously that there isn’t necessarily time and space to ponder the hints. While in the midst of the book, I several times found myself saying “Wait…what?” and having to double check who was speaking. Because of this, I felt as though I should have been keeping a sort of organizational chart of the characters. Feeney is very clever with these changes of perspectives, and I am normally quite a fan of disorientation in a book, but this one definitely brought me to the brink of an acceptable level of confusion.

In the end, the resolution pulls all the pieces together in a satisfying manner. However, to do so, Feeney relies on one character explaining it all to another. As well as it works, this is not my favorite means of closure. By the time we reach that point, though, many readers will just want it all explained! This was one of the most disorienting books I’ve ever read, and as we reflect with the characters on the underlying themes, it provided a lot of food for thought.

 

Dutton
Published August 25, 2026
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier

Since it’s set in London in 1888, it should come as no surprise that The Whitechapel Full Moon Society is about Jack the Ripper — at least in part. But author Elizabeth DeLozier has found a unique angle to give her tale, and her angle includes, in part, remembering the victims, especially Mary Jane Kelly. DeLozier makes the point more than once that the women who were killed were wives, daughters, mothers, people in their own right and not just victims of a famous killer, and she does a nice job of spotlighting them. Because little is known about Mary Jane Kelly in particular, DeLozier creates a believable story for her. But the real story of The Whitechapel Full Moon Society belongs to Caroline Foster.

Continue reading “The Whitechapel Full Moon Society by Elizabeth DeLozier”