Category: Reviews

Atlantic Crime
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

DS George Cross is one of those detectives who is both brilliant and hard for his colleagues to tolerate. The Poltician is one of a series of seven mysteries that started publication in the UK in 2020 and is now being reissued in the US, each named for the profession of the victim. In this series entry, Cross investigates the death of the former mayor of Bristol who, in retirement, has become a popular social media influencer. She’s been found in her home, a victim of blunt force trauma. Cross and DS Ottey, his patient partner, set out to discover what happened and who was responsible.

Continue reading “The Politician by Tim Sullivan”

Soho
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Janey is in a bad way after finding the mutilated body of a woman near some abandoned train tracks. Her grandmother is at her wits end, trying to figure out how to help the traumatized twelve year old and can’t help but think the girl is holding something back. Something troubling that has led her to go to confession three times. Janey can’t even stand the company of her dog, Sid Vicious, who led her to the body. The truth is, while Janey can’t stop thinking about what she saw, she can’t recall what happened afterword, when she may have seen the killer.

Continue reading “A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford”

The weather might be frightful, but it’s fine for reading in some cozy place, and we have some recommendations for you, some from debut authors and some from old hands. Whatever your reading preferences, there should be something of interest in our February list. Coming in March: fine mysteries by first-time novelists, including Frances Crawford (A Bad, Bad Place) and T Kira Madden (Whidbey) as well as the third and final Cal Hooper mystery by Tana French (The Keeper) among other reviews.

Jo Nesbø, Wolf Hour – “This is an unusual departure for Nesbø, though in some ways it’s a return to form, reminiscent of his early Harry Hole novels before they began to focus on flashy, deviant serial killers, more engaged with social issues and characters with complex motives.” Barbara Fister

Michelle L. Cullen, A Field Guide to Murder – “The action is paced at the speed Harry can get around with a walker and a cane, so there are no high-speed chases, but that doesn’t mean the plot doesn’t move along nicely. It may be a gentle stroll, but it keeps the pages turning quickly.” Meredith Frazier

Yosha Gunasekera, The Midnight Taxi – “Readers will enjoy riding along in this entertaining debut as they strive to solve a locked-room mystery that just happens to take place in a New York cab.” Barbara Fister

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Final Problem – “This is a clever bit of metafictional storytelling that deliberately plays with classic mystery tropes, with the conversations between Basil and his sidekick referring to many Sherlock Holmes stories, all unfolding within an Agatha Christie scenario.” Barbara Fister

James Lee Burke, The Hadacol Boogie – “This may be the most beautifully written of all Burke’s books . . . Throw in a couple of hard guys with a chain saw, a handyman with one foot in our reality and the other in his own, the autistic son of one of the hard guys who may or may not know something he shouldn’t, and Joan of Arc, and you have another Tuesday in Iberia Parish.” Julie Campbell

Jennifer K. Breedlove, Murder Will Out – “Winning the Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Award, Murder Will Out features an interesting cast of characters, a complicated mystery, and plenty of unexpected twists and turns.” Meredith Frazier

Devon Mihesuah, Blood Relay – “This thriller by a Choctaw historian and award-winning writer is an assured and compelling story that uses threads about Indian relay racing, land claims, and the legacy of toxic exploitation of natural resources to weave a plot about missing and murdered indigenous women.” Barbara Fister

Naomi Hirahara, Crown City – “What is most fascinating about this novel is seeing a young man raised by a respected artisan in Meiji Restoration Japan travel to America, learning about its culture and seeking his place in it. His observations and comparisons are eye-opening for those of us who know little beyond the bare bones of the Japanese American experience.” Barbara Fister

Rebecca Philipson, How to Get Away With Murder – “. . . full of surprises, just as a murder mystery should be. And while you may suspect you know right from the beginning how things are going to go, Philipson masterfully twists every expectation.” Meredith Frazier

Patricia B. McConnell, Away to Me – “In many ways, the small mysteries of why the dogs in the story behave and how Maddie decodes the things they are trying to tell her is as absorbing as the murder investigation . . . you’re likely to enjoy the company of this intriguing narrator and the dogs in her life.” Barbara Fister

Nicci French, Tyler Green Will Never Be Free – “While these are not the kind of thrillers that depend on lots of action and short cliff-hanger chapters, they cleverly ramp up tension as the pages turn. In this case, we get to watch a dinner party go completely and extravagantly off the rails . . .” Barbara Fister

 

 

 

Kensington
Published February 24, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Maddie McGowan understands dogs. She has a PhD in applied animal behavior, and has a practice treating dogs with an excess of anxiety, aggression, or other problems. She also has a flock of sheep and Jack, a border collie to herd them. Together, they compete in sheepdog trials, having been schooled in the sport by her mentor and friend, George, whose training skills are legendary. On the day she greets him at a trial where she hopes Jack will put in a good showing, he seems unusually tense. After he tells his dog “away to me” – a command to start rounding up sheep, as they begin the competition – a rifle shot rings out and he falls to the ground. His dog, confused, herds the sheep to his body as George’s friends try to revive him, to no avail.

Continue reading “Away to Me by Patricia B. McConnell”

Minotaur
Published on February 24, 2026
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier

How to Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson is full of surprises, just as a murder mystery should be. And while you may suspect you know right from the beginning how things are going to go, Philipson masterfully twists every expectation.

Scotland Yard detective Sam Hansen has been on leave following a nervous breakdown, but the murder of a young girl impels her to go back to work to find the killer. That’s all straightforward enough, but there is a book within the book: the title work is a how-to guide written by Denver Brady, a serial killer who has never been caught. Philipson opens with an excerpt from Brady’s book, then alternates chapters of Brady’s book—which is found at the scene of the crime—with chapters following Hansen and the murder investigation. The two stories weave together with subtle—but unsettling—similarities. Soon, Hansen is not only looking for the child murderer but is also trying to find Brady by tracing his crimes.

Continue reading “How to Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson”

Soho
Published February 24, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

For many years, Naomi Hirahara has been revealing the lives of Japanese Americans to readers who have much to learn. Recently, she published two mysteries about a family whose forced removal to an internment camp during World War II changed their lives, and how even after returning to California they experienced a cascade of injustices–all while relating a captivating story with memorable characters. In her third “Japantown” mystery, she does it again, only this time moving the action to an earlier time period, 1903, as a young man, Ryunosuke Wada (nicknamed Ryui and later renamed Louie by an American woman) trained as a skilled carpenter by his exacting artisan father. He leaves Yokohama after his father’s death to work for an importer of Japanese art in Pasadena, where a popular Japanese artist, Toshio Ayoki, has created a market for those enamored of Japanese culture, if not of Japanese people themselves. There, sharing a boardinghouse room with another Japanese immigrant who is a talented photographer, he learns his way around “Crown City” and American ways, until a mystery comes his way–the first of several.

Continue reading “Crown City by Naomi Hirahara”

Bantam 
Published February 24, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister

Dels has had to leave the relay early. She was competing in the indigenous sport of racing that involves jumping on the back of a horse, riding around a track, then leaping off and jumping onto another horse, all at breakneck speed. It’s a rough sport, and a point of Indian pride. Her team is hard to beat, but she has injured her knee, so starts home with her teenage cousin, towing a horse trailer. But as they drive down the highway, one of her tires flattens and she has to steer into an abandoned rest area. It’s rural Oklahoma and help is far away. When a semi truck pulls up, blinding them with its lights, it soon becomes clear it’s not there to provide aid. In minutes, Dels’ cousin is lying unconscious on the ground and Dels is abducted, a fate all too familiar to indigenous women.

Continue reading “Blood Relay by Devon Mihesuah”

Minotaur 
Published February 17, 2026
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier

Winning the Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Award, Murder Will Out features an interesting cast of characters, a complicated mystery, and plenty of unexpected twists and turns.

Set on an island off the coast of Maine, Jennifer K. Breedlove’s debut novel centers around Willow Stone who returns after a 15-year absence when she hears of her godmother’s death. Willow quickly begins to suspect that death was not the accident it appeared to be, which then calls into questions other recent deaths of the heirs of Cameron House. Willow and her new-found friends begin to investigate the deaths, and Willow soon finds herself caught up in a tangled—and dangerous—web of lies, greed, and, of course, murder.

Continue reading “Murder Will Out by Jennifer K. Breedlove”