1. society
2. crime
3. personal offense
4. homicide

The Merchant of Menace
The official newsletter of
SLEUTH of Baker Street
907 Millwood Rd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4G 1X2
416-483-3111 e-mail [email protected]
SleuthOfBakerStreet.ca
Greetings.
March 2015
it once was, construction is going on all around her, dust and dirt are
choking, her doctor son, Martin, has neglected her beautiful house
It’s been a rather harsh winter once again and I am getting a little too and it’s fine antique furnishings. And where once there were trees and
old for this. We’ve had record low temperatures this February and
grass, there is a home occupied by a young family. Curious, and as
there seems no letup in sight. Good thing I’m in Florida as I put the
you begin to suspect, a few marbles light, she starts spying on the litfinishing touches on this issue! Had the chance to come down here
tle boy and girl who play in the yard. But what’s that in the shadows,
and play some golf and who am I to not take advantage of such warm under the tree? Is it really a scrawny little boy who seems neglected
offers? A very good friend who lives a charmed life has a place in
and malnourished, playing with stones and branches in the dirt? And
Sarasota and he invited me down for a week of golf. The weather
why does he look so much like her grandson that she’s not allowed to
ranged from the mid-60s to the mid-80s and it was all wonderful. To visit? Convinced that the boy is being abused, she vows to save him.
be correct I suppose I should have said around 15 to 30. Played a lot With every page, Madame Préau seems more unhinged, more dangerof golf and enjoyed every minute of it, but now having to wait anoth- ous. She’s hearing mice yet the dozens of traps she sets catch nothing;
er six weeks or so before the season opens here will be tough. Well,
the cats in the yard need to be taken care of; Martin is conspiring
to be completely honest, much over 75/25 gets to be on the uncomagainst her and keeping her imprisoned…Madame Préau is an intellifortable side, but I’ll take it.
gent, articulate woman but she’s also nuts. This is a chilling and unsettling psychological thriller that will make for uncomfortable readSarasota is a pretty lovely spot. A condo on the beach overlooking the ing in spots but start it and you will have a hard time putting it down
Gulf with a little balcony might not be a bad way to spend the rest of and you’ll understand why it was such a big hit in Europe and why it
one’s days. Lots of restaurants, shopping malls, golf courses, lots of
won a number of awards for crime writing.
cultural activities, the odd bookstores…actually almost too good to be
believed. Alas, a tad out of the reach of a poor clerk in a bookstore.
A Cut-Like Wound ($19.95) by ANITA NAIR was also very interBut I’ve been promised another invite!
esting. It's the first day of Ramadan in heat-soaked Bangalore. A
young man begins to dress: makeup, a sari, and expensive pearl earrings. Before the mirror he is transformed into Bhuvana. She is a hijra, a transgender seeking love in the bazaars of the city. This novel is
a police-procedural, but, chances are, nothing like what you’re familiar with. Without the tools—forensic, legal, societal—that first-world
forces have at their disposal, this police investigation is conducted in
I played a lot of golf and read a lot. The Stone Boy ($17) by SOPHIE whole different way. And as you’ve likely never been to Bangalore,
LOUBIERE was a marvelous read. This novel is the North American whether in fact or (mystery) fiction, I think you’ll find the landscape
debut of this French writer and this is a fine psychological thriller.
exotic, incomprehensible but fascinating. Like any other novel set in
Madame Préau, a retired headmistress, has been away for some ten
an unfamiliar time or place there is lots to be confused about, and a
years, in a convalescent home, and returns to her home near Paris to
small glossary would have come in very handy, but confused as I was
find that all has changed. Her house is no longer the leafy refuge that for parts of the story, I liked it a great deal. Our hero, Inspector Borei
J.D.’s Picks
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SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
Gowda, difficult to deal with, not as subservient as his superiors
would like him to be but quite well respected by some of his colleagues, is an interesting character. He’s passionate about doing his
job despite the interference from the higher ups. He’s feeling a little
shut out from his wife and family, so when an old girlfriend reappears, well, he has a dilemma. The distraction of Urmila combined
with his investigation into a serial killer on the loose in Bangalore
make for a very entertaining story and I’d be happy to read more stories with this character.
JIM HARRISON’s The Great Leader (#1) ($22.95 trade paperback)
was a delight. The author has won international acclaim for his body
of work, but this one is wholly different from what he has written before. Great was published some years ago but only came to my attention when I saw the sequel listed. Simon Sunderson—though only his
mother gets away with calling him Simon—has only very recently retired but he is adamant about getting the Great Leader off the streets
and into jail and so doing is going to be his retirement project. GL is
the leader of a cult located initially in Northern Michigan, Sunderson’s bailiwick, but he and his followers are on the run to warmer
climes, Arizona, partially to flee Sudnerson’s scrutiny. There have
been reports of GL’s taste for young girls and fleecing his followers
of tens of thousands of dollars to support his cult and his expensive
tastes. The parents of some of the young girls are followers of GL
themselves and won’t press charges. So Sunderson has a difficult job
ahead of him to gather enough evidence against GL. But he is adamant that he will. Sunderson is a history buff—his ex-wife used to
complain that he spent more on his history books than they spend on
the mortgage—and being with his beloved history books and fishing
the beautiful streams of his native Upper Peninsula of Michigan for
brook trout is what he would rather do more than just about anything
else, but not unto GL is sorted out. There is a lovely, quiet wit about
Sunderson, and you know how well that works for me, and I enjoyed
my journey with eccentric, weak, alcoholic, aging Sunderson. Lots of
American history, particularly the appalling treatment of the Native
peoples as European settlers moved in—killing them all was the easiest approach—his bouts of gout and excessive drinking, which only
muddles his thinking, and inappropriate sexual impulses, which make
for some very funny moments, combine in this witty, meandering
read, perfect for a long weekend. The sequel, Big Seven (#2)
($34.95), is now out and I’ll look looking forward to it.
e-MOM March 2015 Page 2
rything else. Can you spell “compatible?” So here I go again and this
better work or you won’t be reading my Picks. Actually if you can’t
read my picks you won’t be reading my rant, but, I get to vent. But I
keep my fingers crossed, forever hopeful. (Given some of the issues
I’ve been having recently with Windows 8 and this new Dell—not
sure which one is the problem, but they’re pretty much both crap—
I’m ready to throw in the towel myself. Going back to pencil and paper might not such an undesirable proposition!-JD)
JD read, and loved, Or the Bull Kills You (#1) by JASON WEBSTER featuring Chief Inspector Max Cámara. Since I have always
wanted to go to Spain, and given his strong recommendation, I decided to give it a go as well. But, silly me, wouldn’t you know it…the
book is out of print. It seems we bought the last eight copies in existence and all are sold. Not to be deterred, I started with the second in
the series A Death in Valencia (#2) ($15 remaindered hard cover),
and just loved it. Lots of copies of it around! The colourful sights and
sounds, the Spanish wine and food, the politics and a great plot all
combine to make this an entertaining read and I’m hooked. A renowned paella chef has been found dead; the mayor and other local
politicians want to demolish El Cabanyal, the colourful fisherman's
quarter on Valencia's seafront; an abortionist has been kidnapped and
with the Pope due to visit the city, the police are on high alert. One of
Chief Inspector Max Cámara's long term adversaries is put in charge
of the missing abortionist case and tensions quickly run high. Add to
that ominous cracks spreading across the walls of his flat and Cámara
feels under a lot of pressure. (And those cracks lead us into another
plot)! Lots of action, twists and turns, great atmosphere, I think I have
to find a marathon to walk in Spain somewhere, it sounds like a beautiful place. The third and fourth in the series are Anarchist Detective
(#3) ($16.99) and Blood Med (#4) ($16.99 due at the end of July). A
good series to start on!
I know JD mentioned PETER MAY in the February 2015 newsletter
but I just had to add my voice to let you know how great this writer
is. Many years ago PETER MAY wrote a terrific series set in China
featuring Beijing detective Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell. But, alas, the six books in the series are out of print at
the moment. Hopefully some publisher will get wise, buy the rights
and reprint these terrific mysteries. After his “China” series he introduced us to Enzo Macleod in 2006, and has produced five titles in the
“Enzo” series, the first three of which are now back in print in the UK
and the remaining two will be in the next few months. Our friends at
Poisoned Pen Press did print some of this series a few years back,
with title changes if I remember correctly, but those are no longer
available so we are bringing in the new UK editions. Forensic expert
Enzo Macleod is a professor at a university in Toulouse and has taken
I don’t know what it is about computers but I always seem to be
a wager to solve the seven most notorious French murders using modscrewing up with them. I can never find where I save my work; the
ern technology and a total disregard for the justice system. The first,
computer can’t read my file if I type it on one computer and then try Extraordinary People ($24 trade paperback) is terrific, in fact all of
to open it on another; or sometimes, as happened a few newsletters
them are, so save your dollars, forego lunch or dinner and buy them
ago, my file of Picks gets completely lost and mangled. When I
all. Lots of stock on hand and more as we need it, so start the series
opened the file all I got was thousands of tiny little square boxes on
and enjoy some great reads: Extraordinary People (#1), The Critic
the screen. And it has happened again with my March 2015 newslet- (#2) and Blacklight Blue (#3) are available and Freeze Frame (#4)
ter Picks. And of course himself was away golfing his tiny little brains will be available by the end of April and Blowback (#5), mid-June.
out in sunny Florida, chasing that stupid little white ball. Percy wasn’t They are $24 each in trade paperback. Order your copies soon!
any help either; he has his own, little larger, balls that he wants to
chase, (tennis balls at the dog park)! Microsoft keeps assuring me that And while I`m on the PETER MAY topic, his “Lewis Trilogy” is
I can seamlessly transfer my work to any machine any time, but, I
now available from a Canadian distributor, at very nice prices. The
think that that’s a big con game. JD, of course, is convinced that I’m stories are set on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides of Scotland and
too stupid to let live. He keeps telling me that it’s because we have
are edgy, gripping, gritty, dark, and feature detective Fin Macleod.
old computers, with three different operating systems—XP, 7 and 8— The titles are Blackhouse (#1) ($14.99), The Lewis Man (#2) ($26.99
and three or four different version of Word. He’s much better at buy- hardcover and the $14.99 trade paperback is expected April 15) and
ing the latest and greatest than at making sure everything talks to eve- The Chessman (#3) ($26.99 hardcover). Here is a short description of
Marian’s Picks
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
e-MOM March 2015 Page 3
the plot of Blackhouse: “When a grisly murder occurs on the Isle of
Lewis that bears similarities to a brutal killing on the mainland, Edinburgh detective and native islander Fin Macleod is dispatched to the
Outer Hebrides to investigate, embarking at the same time on a voyage into his own troubled past. As Fin reconnects with the people and
places of his tortured childhood, the desolate but beautiful island and
its ancient customs once again begin to assert their grip on his psyche.
Every step toward solving the case brings Fin closer to a dangerous
confrontation with the dark events of the past that shaped, and nearly
destroyed, his life.” So good!!! You must read this author.
gle. Charlo Torp has become estranged from his daughter after his
wife died from cancer, and is overwhelmed with unpayable debts. In
a desperate attempt to fix his life, he robs a wealthy old woman.
Things go terribly wrong and she is murdered. It was the old woman’s fault, Charlo tells himself repeatedly, as he tries to win back his
daughter’s affection, and hide his crime from the police. Inspector Sejer is the investigating officer and the protagonist of the series. He’s
never had an unsolved case. This time, however, Sejer is only minimally present, while the focus is on Charlo and his actions that are
spurred on by necessity and fear. Fossum has written an insightful
study of human morality through a poet’s eyes, and raises the quesI love a good spy story so when I discovered MICK HERRON I was tion: How far would you go for a fresh start?
thrilled. Slow Horses (#1) ($9.95) and Dead Lions (#2) ($14.95) are
the two titles featuring those sloppy MI5 agents who have screwed up
their careers somehow and have been relegated to an offshoot office
to do menial work, while the other agents are busy saving England
from the bad guys. Slow Horses was shortlisted for the Ian Fleming
Dagger, while Dead Lions was shortlisted for, and won, the Gold
ADLER-OLSEN, JUSSI ALPHABET HOUSE ($32.95) British
Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the year. I was disappointed that his
pilots James Teasdale and Bryan Young have been chosen to conduct
new book, Nobody Walks ($26.99), was not the third adventure of
a special photo-reconnaissance mission near Dresden, Germany. Inthose loveable losers, but I wasn’t disappointed in the read. No sir.
telligence believes the Nazis are building new factories that could
This is every bit as good and every bit as thrilling. Tom Bettany is
turn the tide of the war. When their plane is shot down, James and
working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets word tellBryan know they will be executed if captured. With an enemy patrol
ing him that his estranged 26-year-old son Liam is dead. Liam, it
in pursuit, they manage to jump aboard a train reserved for senior SS
seems, fell from his London balcony, where he was smoking pot.
soldiers wounded on the eastern front. In a moment of desperation,
Tom returns home to London determined to find out the truth about
they throw two patients off the train and take their places, hoping they
his son’s death, no matter whose feathers he ruffles. But quite a few
can escape later. But their act is too convincing and they end up in the
people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town, from incarcerAlphabet House, a mental hospital located far behind enemy lines,
ated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5. He might
where German doctors subject their patients to daily rounds of shock
have thought he’d left it all behind when he first skipped town, but
treatments and experimental drugs. The pilots’ only hope of survival
nobody ever really walks away. And the ending of the story will have
is to fake insanity until the war ends, but their friendship and courage
you biting your nails!!
are put to the ultimate test when James and Bryan realize they aren’t
the only ones in the Alphabet House feigning madness. A standalone
novel from the writer of the Department Q series.
ANOLIK, LILI DARK ROOMS ($31.99) Death sets the plot in
motion: the murder of Nica Baker, beautiful, wild, enigmatic, and only sixteen. The crime is solved, and quickly, a lonely classmate, unreI confessed in the November newsletter that I had never read LAUquited love, a suicide note confession, but memory and instinct won’t
RIE R. KING’s Mary Russell / Sherlock Holmes mysteries before.
allow Nica’s older sister, Grace, to accept the case as closed. DropAfter reading The Bones of Paris (Harris Stuyvesant #2) ($19), I de- ping out of college and living at home, working at the moneyed and
cided I had to meet Ms. King’s version of Holmes and picked up her progressive private high school in Hartford, Connecticut, from which
latest addition to the series, Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell / Sherlock she recently graduated, Grace becomes increasingly obsessed with
Holmes #13) ($31). As someone who is wary of authors who take be- identifying and punishing the real killer. A debut novel.
loved characters and use them in their own fiction, I loved the tongue- ARCHER, JEFFREY clifton MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
in-cheek reference to the fact that Sherlock is ARTHUR CONAN
(#5) ($32.50) When Harry Clifton visits his publisher in New York,
DOYLE’s creation. In King’s novels (narrated by Holmes’s wife,
he learns that he has been elected as the new president of English
Mary), Sherlock Holmes simply allows the world to believe that he is PEN, and immediately launches a campaign for the release of a fela fictional character, so that he can investigate with more freedom.
low author, Anatoly Babakov, who's imprisoned in Siberia. Babakov's
He’s a married man of flesh and blood. In this case, Holmes and
crime? Writing a book called Uncle Joe, a devastating insight into
Mary are on a steamer ship bound for Japan. Imagine being stuck on a what it was like to work for Stalin. So determined is Harry to see Baship with Holmes for weeks on end, without the welcome distraction bakov released and the book published, that he puts his own life in
of rampaging tusked boars, and flimsy aeroplanes to keep him occu- danger. His wife Emma, chairman of Barrington Shipping, is facing
pied. There are drawbacks to having a husband with a restless mind.
the repercussions of the IRA attack on the Buckingham. Some board
Luckily, a blackmailer on board the ship and a lithe young Japanese
members feel she should resign, and Lady Virginia Fenwick will stop
woman lead them to a mystery that has the power to topple an empire. at nothing to cause Emma's downfall. Sir Giles Barrington is now a
You can tell right away when an author has had fun writing a book.
minister of the Crown, and looks set for even higher office, until an
King’s enthusiasm for Holmes and Russell’s partnership leaps off the official trip to Berlin does not end as a diplomatic success. Once
page, making this a compelling blend of history and adventure.
again, Giles's political career is thrown off balance by none other than
his old adversary, Major Alex Fisher, who once again stands against
On a bleaker, yet no less gripping note, The Murder of Harriet Krohn him at the election. But who wins this time? In London, Harry and
(#7) (#22) by KARIN FOSSUM begins with a man walking through Emma's son, Sebastian, is quickly making a name for himself at Fardarkness. In this Norwegian novel, the reader is kept firmly inside the thing's Bank in London, and has proposed to the beautiful young
murderer’s mind, a witness to every justification and internal strugAmerican, Samantha. But the despicable Adrian Sloane, a man inter-
Hardbacks
Vanessa’s Picks
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
ested only in his own advancement and the ruin of Sebastian, will
stop at nothing to remove his rival.
ATKINS, LUCY MISSING ONE ($24.99) Kal McKenzie was
never close to her mother Elena, whose coldness towards her spoiled
any chance of a good relationship. When Elena dies of cancer, Kal
feels forlorn: how do you mourn a mother who, inexplicably, just didn’t seem to love you? While clearing out Elena’s art studio, Kal finds
a drawer packed with postcards, each bearing an identical one-line
message from a Canadian gallery owner named Susannah Gillespie:
“Thinking of you.” Who is this woman and what does she hold the
key to her ruined relationship with her mother? Conflicted by her
grief and shaken up from recently seeing a covetous text from an old
girlfriend on her husband’s cell phone, Kal impulsively sets off with
her toddler Finn to Susannah’s isolated home on a remote British Columbian island. A place of killer whales and storms. Soon Kal quickly
realizes she has made a big mistake.
BEATON, M C macbeth DEATH OF A LIAR (#30) ($28) Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is alarmed to receive a report from a woman
in the small village of Cronish in the Scottish Highlands. She has
been brutally attacked and the criminal is on the loose. But upon further investigation, Hamish discovers that she was lying about the
crime. So when the same woman calls him back about an intruder, he
simply marvels at her compulsion to lie. This time, though, she is telling the truth. Her body is found in her home and Hamish must sort
through all of her lies to solve the crime.
BERENSON, ALEX john wells TWELVE DAYS (#9) ($32.95)
John Wells, with his former CIA bosses Ellis Shafer and Vinnie Duto,
has uncovered a staggering plot, a false-flag operation to convince the
President to attack Iran. But they have no hard evidence, and no one
at Langley or the White House will listen. Now the President has set a
deadline for Iran to give up its nuclear program, and the mullahs in
Tehran, furious and frightened, have responded with a deadly terrorist
attack. Wells, Shafer, and Duto know they have only twelve days to
find the proof they need.
BLACK, CARA MURDER ON THE CHAMPS DE MARS (#15)
($27.95) Paris, April 1999: Aimée Leduc has her work cut out for her,
running her detective agency and fighting off sleep deprivation as she
tries to be a good single mother to her new bébé. The last thing she
has time for now is to take on a personal investigation for a poor gypsy boy. But he insists his dying mother has an important secret she
needs to tell Aimée, something to do with Aimée’s father’s unsolved
murder a decade ago. How can she say no? The dying woman’s secret
is even more dangerous than her son realized. When Aimée arrives at
the hospital, the boy’s mother has disappeared. She was far too sick to
leave on her own, she must have been abducted. What does she know
that’s so important it’s worth killing for? And will Aimée be able to
find her before it’s too late and the medication keeping her alive runs
out?
BLAEDEL, SARA FORGOTTEN GIRLS ($29) The body of an
unidentified woman was discovered in a local forest. A large, unique
scar on one side of her face should have made the identification easy,
but nobody has reported her missing. As the new commander of the
Missing Persons Department, Louise risks involving the media by releasing a photo of the victim, hoping to find someone who knew her.
Louise's gamble pays off: an older woman phones to say that she recognizes the woman as Lisemette, a child she once cared for in the
state mental institution many years ago. Lisemette, like the other children in the institution, was abandoned by her family and branded a
"forgotten girl." But Louise soon discovers something more disturbing: Lisemette had a twin, and both girls were issued death certificates more than thirty years ago. Aided by her friend journalist Camilla Lind, Louise finds that the investigation takes a surprising and
unsettling turn when it brings her closer to her childhood home. And
as she uncovers more crimes that were committed, and hidden, in the
e-MOM March 2015 Page 4
forest, she is forced to confront a terrible link to her own past that has
been carefully concealed.
BOWEN, GAIL 12 ROSE STREET (#15) ($27.95) Joanne's husband Zack is the leading progressive candidate in a neck-and-neck
race, with the existing mayor, for Regina's top job. The tough campaigning is well underway when a disturbing threat disrupts the celebration for the opening of the Racette-Hunter Centre, a project Zack
has been spearheading, intended to benefit the impoverished community of North Central Regina. Joanne soon realizes that sinister interests are working behind the scenes of the election, and another savage
act makes clear that someone will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo. The Shreve campaign perseveres, but when Zack's opponents
share some shocking information about the past, the revelation sends
Joanne reeling. As tensions around the election build, Joanne tries to
hold herself together, keep her family intact, and get to the bottom of
why a series of violent incidents, seemingly related to the mayoral
race, all lead back to a mysterious property in North Central, 12 Rose
Street.
BRANDT, HARRY WHITES ($32.50) Back in the run-and-gun
days of the mid-1990s, when a young Billy Graves worked in the
South Bronx as part of an aggressive anti-crime unit known as the
Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a ten-yearold boy while struggling with an angel-dusted berserker on a crowded
street. Branded as a loose cannon by his higher-ups, Billy spent years
enduring one dead-end posting after another. Now in his early forties,
he has somehow survived and become a sergeant in Manhattan Night
Watch, a small team of detectives charged with responding to all post
-midnight felonies from Wall Street to Harlem. Mostly, his unit acts
as little more than a set-up crew for the incoming shift, but after years
in police purgatory, Billy is content simply to do his job. Then comes
a call that changes everything: Night Watch is summoned to the four
a.m. fatal slashing of a man in Penn Station, and this time Billy's investigation moves beyond the usual handoff to the day tour. And
when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved
murder of a twelve-year-old boy, a savage case with connections to
the former members of the Wild Geese, the bad old days are back in
Billy's life with a vengeance, tearing apart enduring friendships
forged in the urban trenches and even threatening the safety of his
family.
BREKKE, JORGEN DREAMLESS (#2) ($29.99) A promising
young singer is found dead in a clearing in a forest, gruesomely murdered, her larynx cut out, and an antique music box placed carefully
atop her body, playing a mysterious lullaby that sounds familiar, but
that no one can quite place. Chief Inspector Odd Singsaker, of the
Trondheim Police Department, still recovering from brain surgery, is
called in to investigate. Singsaker, now married to Felicia Stone, the
American detective he met while tracking down a serial killer, fears
the worst when another young girl, also known for her melodic singing voice, suddenly goes missing while on a walk with her dog one
night. As the Trondheim police follow the trail of this deadly killer, it
becomes clear that both cases are somehow connected to a centuriesold ballad called “The Golden Peace," written by a mysterious composer called Jon Blund, in the seventeenth century. The first in the series is Where Monsters Dwell ($18.50). Also titled Where Evil Lies
in the UK.
BRETT, SIMON feathering TOMB IN TURKEY (#16) ($37.50)
Carole Seddon has never enjoyed holidays much. Nevertheless, she
has allowed herself to be persuaded by her friend Jude to accept a
fortnight’s free accommodation at a luxurious Turkish villa owned by
Jude’s property developer friend Barney Willingdon. But from the
outset the holiday is marred by a series of menacing incidents: threatening messages daubed on the villa walls; and their host being accosted by a knife-wielding man at a local restaurant. As Carole and Jude
launch into what they do best, investigating, it becomes clear that
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
Barney Willingdon has made plenty of enemies, with his ruthless
business deals and complicated love life. Matters come to a head
when Carole’s sightseeing trip to nearby Pinara is curtailed by the
discovery of a body in one of the ancient Lycian tombs. And what really did happen to Barney’s first wife, Zoe?
CALDWELL, IAN FIFTH GOSPEL ($32) In 2004, as Pope John
Paul II’s reign enters its twilight, a mysterious exhibit is under construction at the Vatican Museums. A week before it is scheduled to
open, its curator is murdered at a clandestine meeting on the outskirts
of Rome. That same night, a violent break-in rocks the home of the
curator’s research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic
priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son. When
the papal police fail to identify a suspect in either crime, Father Alex,
desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation.
To find the killer he must reconstruct the dead curator’s secret: what
the four Christian gospels, and a little-known, true-to-life fifth gospel
known as the Diatessaron, reveal about the Church’s most controversial holy relic. But just as he begins to understand the truth about his
friend’s death and its consequences for the future of the world’s two
largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down by
someone with a vested stake in the exhibit, someone he must outwit
to survive. From the author of The Rule of Four, ($19), originally
published in 2004.
CLARKSON, JOHN AMONG THIEVES ($29.99) They thought
they could cover up what an out-of-control trader at a Manhattan brokerage firm did to Olivia Sanchez. She worked hard, played by the
rules, but so what? Blackball her from the industry and be done with
her. Who's going to stop them? Nobody, until Olivia turns to her
cousin Manny, an ex-con and ex-gang leader whose first reaction is to
take care of the arrogant bastard who hurt his cousin permanently. His
partner, James Beck, part of a tight clique of ex-cons based in Brooklyn's Red Hook, convinces Manny to hold off. Things can be complicated in the real world. But even the savvy Beck has no idea what's
really going on. There's much more at stake than Beck imagines,
starting with enough money to ignite a level of ruthless greed that can
wipe Beck and his partners off the face of the earth. It's tens of millions of dollars, connected to arms dealing for a clandestine U.S.
agency. Beck and his loyal band are forced into an escalating nonstop
war against an arms dealer, war criminals, Russian mobsters, and
even the NYPD. The only way to stay out of prison and survive is to
outsmart, outfight, never concede, and ultimately rob their enemies of
the source of their power: 116 million dollars.
COOPER, TOM MARAUDERS ($31) When the BP oil spill devastates the Gulf coast, those who made a living by shrimping find
themselves in dire straits. For the oddballs and lowlifes who inhabit
the sleepy, working class bayou town of Jeannette,  these desperate
circumstances serve as the catalyst that pushes them to enact whatever risky schemes they can dream up to reverse their fortunes. At the
centre of it all is Gus Lindquist, a pill-addicted, one armed treasure
hunter obsessed with finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte.
His quest brings him into contact with a wide array of memorable
characters, ranging from a couple of small time criminal potheads
prone to hysterical banter, to the smooth-talking oil company middleman out to bamboozle his own mother, to some drug smuggling psychopath twins, to a young man estranged from his father since his
mother died in Hurricane Katrina. As the story progresses, these characters find themselves on a collision course with each other, and as
the tension and action ramp up, it becomes clear that not all of them
will survive these events.
DE BEAUVOIR, JEANNETTE ASYLUM ($29.99) Martine
LeDuc is the director of PR for the mayor's office in Montreal. When
four women are found brutally murdered and shockingly posed on
park benches throughout the city over several months, Martine's boss
fears a PR disaster for the still busy tourist season, and Martine is
e-MOM March 2015 Page 5
now also tasked with acting as liaison between the mayor and the police department. The women were of varying ages, backgrounds and
body types and seemed to have nothing in common. Yet the macabre
presentation of their bodies hints at a connection. Martine is paired
with a young detective, Julian Fletcher, and together they dig deep into the city's and the country's past, only to uncover a dark secret dating back to the 1950s, when orphanages in Montreal and elsewhere were converted to asylums in order to gain more funding. The
children were subjected to horrific experiments such as lobotomies,
electroshock therapy, and psychotropic medication, and many of them
died in the process. The survivors were supposedly compensated for
their trauma by the government and the cases seem to have been settled. So who is bearing a grudge now, and why did these four women
have to die?
DEVERELL, WILLIAM beauchamp SING A WORRIED
SONG (#6) ($24.95) Everything is going well for Arthur Beauchamp
in his early middle age. Life is so good for the top-notch defence lawyer that, in a moment of career restlessness, he decides to switch
sides, just the once, and prosecute a young man charged with murdering a clown. Beauchamp is confident he can prove Randolph Skyler is
guilty. Confident, but still worried and surprisingly blind to how precarious the evidence is — and, worse, to the fissures opening in his
personal life. It’s a case Beauchamp will never forget, not even years
later, when he’s happily remarried and retired to a bucolic life on
Garibaldi Island in the glorious Salish Sea. As Beauchamp is about to
learn, the older you get, the greater the chance is that the past will
come back to bite you. Just arrived, can’t wait to get to it; he is one
of the best in the business. If you have somehow, somehow, missed
this wonderful, entertaining writer, you owe it to yourself. So start
with Trial of Passion (#1) ($19.95).
FLUKE, JOANNE swensen DOUBLE FUDGE BROWNIE MURDER (#19) ($28.95) Life in tiny Lake Eden, Minnesota, is usually
pleasantly uneventful. Lately, though, it seems everyone has more
than their fair share of drama, especially the Swensen family. With so
much on her plate, Hannah Swensen can hardly find the time to think
about her bakery--let alone the town's most recent murder. . . Hannah
is nervous about the upcoming trial for her involvement in a tragic accident. She's eager to clear her name once and for all, but her troubles
only double when she finds the judge bludgeoned to death with his
own gavel--and Hannah is the number one suspect. Now on trial in
the court of public opinion, she sets out in search of the culprit and
discovers that the judge made more than a few enemies during his career. With time running out, Hannah will have to whip up her most
clever recipe yet to find a killer more elusive than the perfect brownie.
GAPPER, JOHN GHOST SHIFT ($31) As an up-and-coming
agent of the Commission for Discipline Inspection, Song Mei probes
political corruption, not mysterious deaths. But that changes when she
arrives on the scene of a grim police investigation and is confronted
with a crime and a victim impossible to ignore. Despite strict orders
and threats from superiors, Mei knows she cannot turn away. Breaking protocol, Mei undertakes a covert search for the truth about the
mystery woman’s death, and life, by following in her footsteps from a
factory plagued by worker suicides to a luxury hotel dealing in highend escorts to an American home haunted by tragedy. But when Mei
crosses paths with an ex–CIA operative on a shadowy mission of his
own, her personal quest takes a jarring turn into political and industrial espionage that pits both agents against the highest ranks of communism and capitalism.
GRADY, JAMES LAST DAYS OF THE CONDOR (#2) ($29.99)
From the publisher’s blurb: Look in the mirror: You're nobody anybody knows. You know pursuing the truth will get you killed. But
you refuse to just fade away. So you're designated an enemy of the
largest secret national security apparatus in America's history. Good
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
guys or bad guys, it doesn't matter: All assassins' guns are aimed at
you. And you run for your life branded with the code name you made
iconic: Condor. Everyone you care about is pulled into the gunsights.
The CIA star young enough to be your daughter-she might shoot you
or save you. The savvy political aide who lets love trump the law.
The lonely woman your romantic dreams make a fugitive. The Middle Eastern child warrior you mentored into a master spy. Last Days
of the Condor is the bullet-paced, ticking clock saga of America on
the edge of our most startling spy world revolution since 9/11. Set in
the savage streets and Kafkaesque corridors of Washington, DC, shot
through with sex and suspense, with secret agent tradecraft and fullspeed action, with hunters and the hunted, Last Days of the Condor is
a breakneck saga of America's secrets from muckraking investigative
reporter and author James Grady. Sequel to Six Days of the Condor,
originally published in 1974, seems to be out of print at the moment.
GRAVES, SARAH snow WINTER AT THE DOOR (#1) ($31)
Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn’t homicide cop
Lizzie Snow’s idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and
personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister’s fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece’s disappearance. Lizzie hopes to find the mysteriously vanished child here,
amid the coming ice and snow. But in the Great North Woods, something darker and more dangerous than punishing winter is also bound
for Bearkill. The town is a world apart in more than distance, full of
people who see everything, say little, and know more than they’ll
share with an outsider. The only exceptions are the handsome state
cop who once badly broke Lizzie’s heart and desperately wants another chance and Lizzie’s new boss, sheriff Cody Chevrier, who’s
counting on her years of homicide experience to help him solve his
most troubling case, before it’s too late. A rash of freak accidents and
suicides has left a string of dead men, all former local cops. Now the
same cruel eyes that watched them die are on Lizzie and so is the
pressure to find out what sort of monster has his hooks in this town,
what his ruthless game is, and just how brutally he’ll play to win.
HADDAM, JANE demarkian FIGHTING CHANCE (#29)
($31.50) Gregor Demarkian grew up in the Armenian-American enclave in Philadelphia known as Cavanaugh Street. Even though he
left to go to college, and then went on to a storied career in the famous Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI, he eventually returned to
Cavanaugh Street after an early retirement. There he finds himself in
a rapidly gentrifying urban neighborhood that still retains some of the
friends, institutions, and flavour of the immigrant neighborhood he
grew up in.  Among them is his best friend, Father Tibor Kasparian,
the parish priest of the local Armenian-Orthodox church, probably the
most genuinely gentle soul that Demarkian has ever met. When Father
Tibor is then arrested on murder charges, it tears at the very foundation of Demarkian's world.  While Gregor has very strict rules about
for whom and under what conditions he will consult, all those rules
go by the wayside.  Demarkian is now a man possessed, and his one
goal is to find out what really happened and who is really responsible
for the murder Father Tibor is charged with.
HARRIS, C. S. st. cyr WHO BURIES THE DEAD (#10) ($27.95)
London, 1813. The vicious decapitation of Stanley Preston, a
wealthy, socially ambitious plantation owner, at Bloody Bridge draws
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, into a macabre and increasingly
perilous investigation. The discovery near the body of an aged lead
coffin strap bearing the inscription King Charles, 1648 suggests a link
between this killing and the beheading of the deposed seventeenthcentury Stuart monarch. Equally troubling, the victim’s kinship to the
current Home Secretary draws the notice of Sebastian’s powerful father-in-law, Lord Jarvis, who will exploit any means to pursue his
own clandestine ends. Working in concert with his fiercely independent wife, Hero, Sebastian finds his inquiries taking him from the
wretched back alleys of Fish Street Hill to the glittering ballrooms of
e-MOM March 2015 Page 6
Mayfair as he amasses a list of suspects who range from an eccentric
Chelsea curiosity collector to the brother of an unassuming but brilliantly observant spinster named Jane Austen. But as one brutal murder follows another, it is the connection between the victims and ruthless former army officer Sinclair, Lord Oliphant, that dramatically
raises the stakes. Once, Oliphant nearly destroyed Sebastian in a horrific wartime act of carnage and betrayal. Now the vindictive former
colonel might well pose a threat not only to Sebastian but to everything, and everyone, Sebastian holds most dear.
HARRISON, METTE IVIE BISHOP’S WIFE ($26.95) Linda
Wallheim is a devout Mormon, the mother of five boys and the wife
of a bishop. But Linda is increasingly troubled by her church’s structure and secrecy, especially as a disturbing situation takes shape in
her ward. One cold winter night, a young wife and mother named
Carrie Helm disappears, leaving behind everything she owns. Carrie’s
husband, Jared, claims his wife has always been unstable and that she
has abandoned the family, but Linda doesn’t trust him. As Linda
snoops in the Helm family’s circumstances, she becomes convinced
that Jared has murdered his wife and painted himself as a wronged
husband. Linda’s husband asks her not to get involved in the unfolding family saga. But Linda has become obsessed with Carrie’s fate,
and with the well-being of her vulnerable young daughter. She cannot
let the matter rest until she finds out the truth. Is she wrong to go
against her husband, the bishop, when her inner convictions are so
strong? Based on a true story.
HERRON, MICK NOBODY WALKS ($26.95) Tom Bettany is
working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets a
voicemail from an Englishwoman he doesn’t know telling him that
his estranged 26-year-old son is dead. Liam Bettany fell from his
London balcony, where he was smoking pot. Now for the first time
since he cut all ties years ago, Bettany returns home to London to find
out the truth about his son’s death. Maybe it’s the guilt he feels about
losing touch with Liam that’s gnawing at him, or maybe he’s actually
put his finger on a labyrinthine plot, but either way he’ll get to the
bottom of the tragedy, no matter whose feathers he has to ruffle. But
more than a few people are interested to hear Bettany is back in town,
from incarcerated mob bosses to those in the highest echelons of MI5.
He might have thought he’d left it all behind when he first skipped
town, but nobody ever really walks away. From the author of the fabulous Slow Horses ($9.95) and Dead Lions ($14.95), this is a stand
alone novel. A favourite of Marian’s. See Marian’s Picks.
JAMES, MARLON BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS
($33) On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election
and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven gunmen stormed the
singer’s house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley,
his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but much has been whispered, gossiped and sung about in the streets of West Kingston. Rumours
abound regarding the assassins’ fates, and there are suspicions  that
the attack was politically motivated.
JERKINS, GRANT DONE IN ONE ($33.95) For SWAT sniper
Jake Denton, the bullet casings he saves as grim reminders of his
"kills" are beginning to add up. His wife, his department-ordered psychiatrist, and even Jake himself are all beginning to question just how
these sanctioned kills are affecting his mental health. Nobody wants
him to end up like Lee Staley, his mentor and ex-partner, now out on
permanent psych leave, drinking himself to death, and the prime suspect in a series of shootings that have paralyzed Northern California.
Jake doesn't believe that Staley's guilty, but since their job has taught
them to kill, how easy would it be for his friend to cross over to the
other side? How easy would it be for him? On every police force in
the country, there's a SWAT sniper going about his daily life, acting
like an average cop, until the moment when the call comes in. Then
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
they become a hostage's last hope and a criminal's worst nightmare.
To some, they are silent heroes, to others, silent killers.
KANON, JOSEPH LEAVING BERLIN ($32.50) Berlin 1948.
Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a
defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the
East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like
the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add
credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his
youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witchhunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a
desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to
America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from
the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he
discovers his real assignment is to spy on the woman he left behind,
the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy
as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our
moral boundaries? Betrayal? Survival? Murder?
KELLERMAN, JONATHAN delaw MOTIVE (#30) ($32) Even
having hundreds of closed cases to his credit can’t keep LAPD police
lieutenant Milo Sturgis from agonizing over the crimes that don’t get
solved and the victims who go without justice. Victims like Katherine
Hennepin, a young woman strangled and stabbed in her home. A single suspect with a solid alibi leads to a dead end, one even Alex Delaware’s expert insight can’t explain. The only thing to do is move on
to the next murder case because there’s always a next one. This time
the victim is Ursula Corey: a successful, attractive divorcée who’s
been gunned down, not a robbery but an execution, a crime that
smacks of simple, savage revenge. And along with that theoretical
motive come two strong contenders for the role of perp: the dead
woman’s business partner/ex-husband and her divorce lawyer/secret
lover. But just as Alex and Milo think they’re zeroing in on the most
likely suspect, a bizarre new clue stirs up eerie echoes of the unsolved
Hennepin murder. And the discovery of yet another crime scene bearing the same taunting signature raises the spectre of a serial killer on a
mission, whose twisted method is exceeded only by his manipulative
and cunning madness.
KERNICK, SIMON FINAL MINUTE ($26.99) After a traumatic
car accident wipes out his memory, Matt Barron retreats to his sister's
house in rural Wales to begin his slow recovery. But something's
wrong. He keeps having a recurring dream of being in a house with a
group of dead bodies and a bloody knife in his hand, and he's beginning to have real doubts that he is who his sister says he is. Then one
night, the past comes calling in the most terrifying way imaginable
and Matt is forced to flee for his life. He needs to find out who he is,
whatever the cost, and there's only one person who can help. Ex-Met
cop, turned private detective, Tina Boyd. But Matt's a hunted man
and, as Tina digs into his background, she suddenly finds herself in
the firing line too. Stock expected by the end of March.
KING, LAURIE R russell DREAMING SPIES (#14) ($31) After
a lengthy case that had the couple traipsing all over India, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are on their way to California to deal with
some family business that Russell has been neglecting for far too
long. Along the way, they plan to break up the long voyage with a sojourn in southern Japan. The cruising steamer Thomas Carlyle is leaving Bombay, bound for Kobe. Though they’re not the vacationing
types, Russell is looking forward to a change of focus, not to mention
a chance to travel to a location Holmes has not visited before. The
idea of the pair being on equal footing is enticing to a woman who often must race to catch up with her older, highly skilled husband.
e-MOM March 2015 Page 7
Aboard the ship, intrigue stirs almost immediately. Holmes recognizes the famous clubman the Earl of Darley, whom he suspects of being
an occasional blackmailer: not an unlikely career choice for a man
richer in social connections than in pounds sterling. And then there’s
the lithe, surprisingly fluent young Japanese woman who befriends
Russell and quotes haiku. She agrees to tutor the couple in Japanese
language and customs, but Russell can’t shake the feeling that Haruki
Sato is not who she claims to be. Once in Japan, Russell’s suspicions
are confirmed in a most surprising way. From the glorious city of Tokyo to the cavernous library at Oxford, Russell and Holmes race to
solve a mystery involving international extortion, espionage, and the
shocking secrets that, if revealed, could spark revolution and topple
an empire.
LAMBDIN, DEWEY adam lewri KINGS AND EMPERORS
(#21) ($29.99) As kings are overthrown and popular uprisings break
out all across Spain, Lewrie's right back in the action, ferrying weapons to arm Spanish patriots, scouting within close gun range of the
impregnable fort of Ceuta, escorting the advance units of British expeditionary armies to aid the Spanish, and even going ashore to witness the first battles between Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of
Wellington, and Napoleon's best Marshals, as the long Peninsular
War that broke Imperial France begins to unfold.
LAUKKANEN, OWEN stevens THE STOLEN ONES (#4) ($31)
Cass County, Minnesota: A sheriff’s deputy steps out of a diner on a
rainy summer evening, and a few minutes later, he’s lying dead in the
mud. When BCA agent Kirk Stevens arrives on the scene, he discovers local authorities have taken into custody a single suspect: A hysterical young woman found sitting by the body, holding the deputy’s
own gun. She has no ID, speaks no English. A mystery woman. The
mystery only deepens from there, as Stevens and Carla Windermere,
his partner in the new joint BCA–FBI violent crime task force, find
themselves on the trail of a massive international kidnapping and
prostitution operation. From the author of the fabulous Professionals
(#1) ($10.99).
LEHANE, DENNIS coughlin WORLD GONE BY (#3) ($34.99)
Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin’s enemies killed his wife
and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead,
the world is at war again, and Joe’s son, Tomás, is growing up. Now,
the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime
family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife’s homeland. A
master who moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Joe effortlessly mixes with Tampa’s social elite, U.S. Naval
intelligence, the Lansky-Luciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista. He has everything—money, power, a
beautiful mistress, and anonymity. But success cannot protect him
from the dark truth of his past—and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full. Sequel to Given Day (#1) and
Live by Night (#2) ($21 each).
LIPPMAN, LAURA monaghan HUSH (#12) ($33.50) On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes committed the unthinkable:
she left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car while she sat
nearby on the shores of the Patapsco River. Melisandre was found not
guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Freed, she left the country, her husband,
and her two surviving children, determined to start over. But now
Melisandre has returned to Baltimore to meet with her estranged teenage daughters and film the reunion for a documentary. The problem
is, she relinquished custody and her ex isn't sure he approves. Now
that she's a mother herself, short on time and patience, Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed
her own child. But her mentor and close friend Tyner Gray, Melisandre's lawyer, has asked Tess and her new partner, retired Baltimore
PD homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to assess Melisandre's security needs. Tess has always felt that her curiosity about others is her
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
greatest strength. Yet the imperious Melisandre is someone she cannot begin to understand, much less empathize with. A decade ago, a
judge ruled that Melisandre was beyond rational thought. But was
she? Tess tries to keep her distance from her mercurial yet confident
client. This strategy gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder. And as her doubts about Melisandre grow, Tess realizes that she's under scrutiny as well, followed by a judgmental
stalker with an ax to grind
MASON, JAMIE MONDAY’S LIE ($29.99) Dee Aldrich rebelled against her off-centre upbringing when she married the most
conventional man she could imagine: Patrick, her college sweetheart.
But now, years later, her marriage is falling apart and she’s starting to
believe that her husband has his eye on a new life, a life without her,
one way or another. Haunted by memories of her late mother Annette,
a former covert operations asset, Dee reaches back into her childhood
to resurrect her mother’s lessons and the “spy games” they played together, in which Dee learned memory tricks and, most importantly,
how and when to lie. But just as she begins determining the course of
the future, she makes a discovery that will change her life: her mother
left her a lot of money and her own husband seems to know more
about it than Dee does. Now, before it’s too late, she must investigate
her suspicions and untangle conspiracy from coincidence, using her
mother’s advice to steer her through the blind spots. The trick, in the
end, will be in deciding if a “normal life” is really what she wants at
all.
MAY, PETER RUNAWAY ($50) An expensive British import.
In 1965, five teenage friends fled Glasgow for London to pursue their
dream of musical stardom. Yet before year's end three returned, and
returned damaged. In 2015, a brutal murder forces those three men,
now in their sixties, to journey back to London and finally confront
the dark truth they have run from for five decades. 
MAY, PETER lewis CHESSMEN (#3) ($26.99) Living again of
the Isle of Lewis, ex-Detective Inspector Fin McLeod is working as a
security officer for a local landowner. While investigating illegal activity on the estate Fin encounters the elusive poacher and former
childhood friend Whistler Macaskill. But while Fin catches up with
Whistler, the two witness a freak natural phenomenon, 'Bog Burst',
which spontaneously drains a loch of its water, revealing a mudencased light aircraft with a sickeningly familiar moniker on its side.
Both men immediately know that they will find inside: the body of
Roddy Mackenzie, a friend whose flight disappeared more than seventeen years before. But when Whistler's face appears to register
something other than shock, an icy chill of apprehension overtakes
Fin. What secret has Whistler been hiding from him, and everyone
else on the island? Fin is unprepared for how the truth about the past
will alter the course of the future. See Marian’s Picks.
MEISTER, ELLEN DOROTHY PARKER DRANK HERE ($31)
Heavenly peace? No, thank you. Dorothy Parker would rather wander
the famous halls of the Algonquin Hotel, drink in hand, searching for
someone, anyone, who will keep her company on this side of eternity.
After forty years she thinks she’s found the perfect candidate in Ted
Shriver, a brilliant literary voice of the 1970s, silenced early in a
promising career by a devastating plagiarism scandal. Now a prickly
recluse, he hides away in the old hotel slowly dying of cancer, which
he refuses to treat. If she can just convince him to sign the infamous
guestbook of Percy Coates, Dorothy Parker might be able to persuade
the jaded writer to spurn the white light with her. Ted, however,
might be the only person living or dead who’s more stubborn than
Parker, and he rejects her proposal outright. When a young, ambitious
TV producer, Norah Wolfe, enters the hotel in search of Ted Shriver,
Parker sees another opportunity to get what she wants. Instead, she
and Norah manage to uncover such startling secrets about Ted’s past
that the future changes for all of them. The first in the series is Farewell, Dorothy Parker ($16).
e-MOM March 2015 Page 8
PEARCE, MICHAEL mamur MOUTH OF THE CROCODILE
(#18) ($37.50) Atbara, Sudan, 1913. A dead man is fished out of the
River Nile. An accident or something more sinister? A visiting Pasha
from the Royal Household believes it was murder and that he himself
was the intended target. He insists that the Mamur Zapt, Head of the
Khedive’s Secret Police, escorts him on his return train journey to
Cairo, for protection. It’s to be an eventful voyage. Matters take an
unexpected turn when the train is stranded in the desert following a
sandstorm. With the help of English schoolboy Jamie Nicholson, the
Mamur Zapt pursues his investigations, convinced that at least one of
his fellow passengers has a secret to hide. And what was the Pasha really doing in that remote corner of the Sudan? Could the Mamur
Zapt’s deepest fears be true? Could he really be about to uncover a
conspiracy against the British?
PYPER, ANDREW DAMNED ($29.99) Danny Orchard wrote a
bestselling memoir about his near-death experience in a fire that
claimed the life of his twin sister, Ashleigh, but despite the resulting
fame and fortune he’s never been able to enjoy his second chance at
life. Ash won’t let him. In life, Danny’s charming and magnetic twin
had been a budding psychopath who privately terrorized her family
and death hasn’t changed her wicked ways. Ash has haunted Danny
for twenty years and now, just when he’s met the love of his life and
has a chance at real happiness, she wants more than ever to punish
him for being alive so she sets her sights on Danny’s new wife and
stepson. Danny knows what Ash really wants is him, and he’s prepared to sacrifice himself in order to save the ones he loves. The
question is: will he make it back this time?
ROWE, ROSEMARY FATEFUL DAY (#15) ($37.50) Libertus
is passing the villa of his patron, Marcus Septimus Aurelius, when he
sees an elaborate travelling carriage which has pulled up outside and
is now blocking the road. Recognising that this may be an important
visitor, Libertus approaches the carriage, intending to explain that
Marcus is away, gone to Rome to visit his old friend Pertinax, who
has recently been installed as Emperor. However, for his efforts,
Libertus instead receives a torrent of abuse and the carriage-driver almost runs him down as he departs. Libertus is badly shaken, but goes
back to the villa the next day to find out why there was no gatekeeper in evidence to deal with the stranger. There he finds a gruesome discovery: the man is dead and hanging in his hut, and none of
the other house-slaves are to be found. Worse things are to follow as
news arrives from Rome which will turn the lives, not only of Libertus and his family, but the whole Empire upside down
SANSOM, C J shardlake LAMENTATION (#6) ($34.95) Summer, 1546. King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant
and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power
struggle; whoever wins will control the government of Henry's successor, 8-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across London, and the radical Protestant Anne Askew is burned at the stake, the
Catholic party focus their attack on Henry's 6th wife, Matthew Shardlake's old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr. Shardlake, still haunted by
events aboard the warship Mary Rose the year before, is working on
the Cotterstoke Will case, a savage dispute between rival siblings.
Then, unexpectedly, he is summoned to Whitehall Palace and asked
for help by his old patron, the now beleaguered and desperate
Queen. For Catherine Parr has a secret. She has written a confessional
book, Lamentation of a Sinner, so radically Protestant that if it came
to the King's attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers
crashing down. But, although the book was kept secret and hidden inside a locked chest in the Queen's private chamber, it has inexplicably
vanished. Only one page has been found, clutched in the hand of a
murdered London printer. Shardlake's investigations take him on a
trail that begins among the backstreet printshops of London but leads
him and Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of the politics of the royal court; a world he had sworn never to enter again.
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
Loyalty to the Queen will drive him into a swirl of intrigue inside
Whitehall Palace, where Catholic enemies and Protestant friends can
be equally dangerous, and the political opportunists, who will follow
the wind wherever it blows, more dangerous than either. The theft of
Queen Catherine's book proves to be connected to the terrible death
of Anne Askew, while his involvement with the Cotterstoke litigants
threatens to bring Shardlake himself to the stake.
SHAW, WILLIAM KINGS OF LONDON (#2) ($29) London,
November 1968. Detective Sergeant Breen has a death threat in his
inbox and a mutilated body on his hands. The dead man was the wayward son of a rising politician and everywhere Breen turns to investigate, he finds himself obstructed and increasingly alienated. Breen
begins to see that the abuse of power is at every level of society. And
when his actions endanger those at the top, he becomes their target.
Out in the cold, banished from a corrupt and fracturing system, Breen
is finally forced to fight fire with fire.
STEINHAUER, OLEN ALL THE OLD KNIVES ($27.99) Six
years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the
rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station was
witness to this tragedy, gathering intel from its sources during those
tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on
the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked:
Had their agent been compromised, and how?
TYLER, L C elsie CROOKED HERRING (#5) ($39.99) Ethelred
Tressider, mid-list crime writer, is surprised when fellow author Henry Holiday unexpectedly turns up on his doorstep. He's even more
surprised when Henry confesses that he may have committed murder
while drunk on New Year's Eve. Though he has little recollection of
the night, Henry fears he may have killed drinking companion and
fellow crime writer Crispin Vynall, and asks Ethelred to discreetly
make enquiries in order to discover the truth. As Ethelred and his
trusty agent Elsie begin to investigate, they discover that Henry has
been set up, and now all that remains is for them to find out why and,
more importantly...whodunit?
WILLIAMS, TIMOTHY guadelo HONEST FOLK OF GUADELOUPE (#2) ($26.95) April 1990: French-Algerian judge Anne Marie Laveaud has been living and working in the French Caribbean département of Guadeloupe for more than a decade, but her days
are still full of surprises. She is only just starting to investigate the
suspicious suicide of a high-profile environmental activist and media
personality when she is pulled off the case. Is it because she was getting too close to the truth? But the new case she’s been assigned takes
precedence. The naked body of a white woman has been discovered
on a beach. The victim’s remains offer no clues about her final hours.
She was found without any of her belongings, and it seems she had
been dead at least three days before anyone spotted her corpse. What
turned this woman’s vacation in paradise into a final nightmare? As
always, the story of a murdered white woman attracts international
media attention. The pressure is on Anne Marie to solve the murder
quickly, before bad publicity destroys the island’s all-important tourist industry.
e-MOM March 2015 Page 9
Marco silent. Detective Carl Mørck wants to save the boy, but
Marco’s trail leads him to a case that extends from Denmark to Africa, from embezzlers to child soldiers, from seemingly petty crime
rings to the very darkest of cover-ups. A terrific series!
AIRD, CATHERINE LAST WRITES ss ($11.99) Twenty-two
brand new short stories. The indefatigable detective Inspector Sloan
reappears in many of these stories with his sidekick Crosby. But there
are also new characters to be met, such as the mysterious Malcolm
Venables of the Secret Service. Full of delicious twists and turns, Last
Writes is a collection to curl up with and savour.
ALEXANDER, ELLIE bakeshop MEET YOUR BAKER (#1)
($9.99) Welcome to Torte-a friendly, small-town family bake shop
where the treats are so good that, sometimes, it's criminal. After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint
hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her
mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's
much ado about murder. The victim is Nancy Hudson, the festival's
newest board member. A modern-day Lady Macbeth, Nancy has given more than a few actors and artists enough reasons to kill her.
Jules's high school sweetheart, Thomas, is the investigator on the
case. His flirtations are as delicious as ever, and Jules can't help but
want to have her cake and eat it too.
ARCHER, CONNIE LADLE TO THE GRAVE (#4) ($9.99) By the
Spoonful is Snowflake, Vermont’s most popular soup shop, but owner Lucky Jamieson doesn’t have any time to enjoy her success, she’s
too busy trying to keep a lid on false accusations against her loved
one. It’s almost May, and some of the local ladies have organized a
pagan celebration in the woods to welcome spring. But the evening
goes terribly wrong when one of the attendees winds up dead, apparently poisoned by an herbal concoction prepared by Lucky’s grandfather, Jack. Lucky’s sure her grandfather could not have made such a
tragic mistake. But before she can clear him of suspicion, her best
friend, Sophie, is diverted from planning her wedding to By the
Spoonful chef Sage DuBois when she finds a dead man floating in the
creek on her property. Now it’s up to Lucky to get both Sophie and
Jack out of hot water. Recipes included.
BALDACCI, DAVID robie TARGET (#3) ($11) The President
knows it's a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he
has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If
the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats
against the nation would multiply. So the president turns to the one
team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel. Together, Robie and Reel's talents as assassins are unmatched. But there are some in power who don't trust the pair. They
doubt their willingness to follow orders. And they will do anything to
see that the two assassins succeed, but that they do not survive. As
they prepare for their mission, Reel faces a personal crisis that could
well lead old enemies right to her doorstep, resurrecting the ghosts of
her earlier life and bringing stark danger to all those close to her. And
all the while, Robie and Reel are stalked by a new adversary: an unknown and unlikely assassin, a woman who has trained her entire life
to kill, and who has her own list of targets, a list that includes Will
Robie and Jessica Reel.
BARR, NEVADA anna pigeon DESTROYER ANGEL (#18)
($11.99) Anna Pigeon, a ranger for the U.S. Park Services, sets off on
ADLER-OLSEN, JUSSI dept q MARCO EFFECT (#5) ($18)
a much-needed vacation: an autumn camping trip in the Iron Range in
Fifteen-year-old Marco Jameson longs to become a Danish citizen
upstate Minnesota. With Anna is her friend Heath, a paraplegic; Elizand go to school like a normal teenager. Unfortunately, his Uncle Zo- abeth, Heath's fifteen-year-old daughter; Leah, a wealthy designer of
la forces the children of their former gypsy clan to beg and steal for
outdoor equipment; and Katie, Leah's thirteen-year-old daughter. For
his personal gain. When Marco discovers a dead body that proves the Heath, this getaway is the ultimate test to see whether Leah's camping
true extent of Zola’s criminal activities, he goes on the run. But it
gear can help make wilderness adventures more accessible to the disturns out his family members aren’t the only ones who want to keep
abled. The trip starts off okay but on their second night disaster
Paperbacks
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
strikes. Anna decides to go for a solo evening float on the Fox River
but when she returns to the campsite, she is shocked to see, with her
own two eyes, that a group of heavily armed thugs have abducted
Heath and the others. Now, with limited resources and no access to
the outside world, Anna must find a way to rescue the women from
their captors, and brave the elements of the unforgiving North Woods,
before it's too late. And time is running out.
BATES, QUENTIN gunnhildur CHILLED TO THE BONE (#3)
($15.95) When Sergeant Gunnhildur Gísladóttir of the local police
force is called in to investigate the death of a man found tied to a bed
in one of Reykjavík's nicest hotels, she finds no sign of criminal activity but suspects there may be more to the case than meets the eye.
Could the death of the shipowner be related to a local gangster’s recent return to Iceland after many years abroad? What begins as a
straightforward case for Gunnhildur soon explodes into a dangerous
investigation, involving a discreet bondage society that ruthless men
will go to violent extremes to keep secret.
BERNEY, LOU LONG AND FARAWAY GONE ($18.50) In the
summer of 1986, two tragedies rocked Oklahoma City. Six movietheatre employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual State
Fair. Neither crime was ever solved. Twenty-five years later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through survivors’
lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt’s latest inquiry takes
him back to a past he’s tried to escape and drags him deeper into the
harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left six of his
friends dead. Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the past, with the
day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared. When Julianna
discovers that one of the original suspects has resurfaced, she’ll stop
at nothing to find answers. As fate brings these damaged souls together, their obsessive quests spark sexual currents neither can resist. But
will their shared passion and obsession heal them, or push them closer
to the edge?
BLACK, BENJAMIN marlowe BLACK EYED BLONDE (#1)
($18.50) "It was one of those summer Tuesday afternoons when you
begin to wonder if the earth has stopped revolving." So begins a new
novel featuring Philip Marlowe-yes, that Philip Marlowe. Channeling
Raymond Chandler, Benjamin Black has brought Marlowe back to
life for a new adventure on the mean streets of Bay City, California. It
is the early 1950s, Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. Then a new client arrives: blond, beautiful, and
expensively dressed, she wants Marlowe to find her former lover. Almost immediately, Marlowe discovers that the man's disappearance is
merely the first in a series of bewildering events, and soon he is tangling with one of Bay City's richest-and most ruthless-families.
BLACK, CARA MURDER IN PIGALLE (#14) ($15.95) June,
1998: Paris’s sticky summer heat is even more oppressive than usual
as rowdy French football fans riot in anticipation of the World Cup.
Private investigator Aimée Leduc has been trying to slow down her
hectic lifestyle, she’s five months pregnant and has the baby’s wellbeing to think about now. But then disaster strikes close to home. A
serial rapist has been terrorizing Paris’s Pigalle neighbourhood, following teenage girls home and attacking them in their own houses.
Zazie, the 13-year-old daughter of the proprietor of Aimée’s favorite
café, has disappeared. The police aren’t mobilizing quickly enough,
and when Zazie’s desperate parents approach Aimée for help, she
knows she couldn’t say no even if she wanted to.
BOWEN, GAIL 12 ROSE STREET (#15) ($27.95) Joanne's husband Zack is the leading progressive candidate in a neck-and-neck
race, with the existing mayor, for Regina's top job. The tough campaigning is well underway when a disturbing threat disrupts the celebration for the opening of the Racette-Hunter Centre, a project Zack
has been spearheading, intended to benefit the impoverished community of North Central Regina. Joanne soon realizes that sinister inter-
e-MOM March 2015 Page 10
ests are working behind the scenes of the election, and another savage
act makes clear that someone will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo. The Shreve campaign perseveres, but when Zack's opponents
share some shocking information about the
BOX, C. J. STONE COLD (#14) ($11.99) Everything about the rich
stranger is a mystery: the massive, isolated ranch in the remote Black
Hills of Wyoming, the women who live with him, the secret philanthropies, the private airstrip, the sudden disappearances. And especially the persistent rumours that the man’s wealth comes from killing
people. Joe Pickett, still officially a game warden but now mostly a
troubleshooter for the governor, is assigned to find out the truth. But
he finds out a lot more than he bargained for. There are two other
men living up at that ranch. One is a stone-cold killer who takes an
instant dislike to Joe. He doesn’t frighten Joe at all. The other man is
another story.
BRADFORD, LAURA SUSPENDERED SENTENCE (#4) ($9.99)
After the Stoltzfus barn catches fire, Claire is awed by the response of
the community. Hundreds of Amish men gather together to raise a
new barn for the family in a matter of days. But in the midst of the
work, a human skeleton is unearthed. Found with the remains is half
of a friendship bracelet last seen on Sadie Lehman, an Amish teen
long believed to have left her strict upbringing for the allure of English ways. Now Detective Jakob Fisher, once a member of the Amish
community himself, is determined to solve the young woman’s murder. With Claire’s help, he must dig into the past and bring to light
long-buried secrets.
BRIGHTWEKK, EMILY MRS. JEFFRIES SERVES AT SIX (#16,
#17 and #18) ($19) Includes Mrs. Jeffries Pinches the Post, Mrs. Jeffries Pleads Her Case and Mrs. Jeffries Sweeps the Company.
BRODY, FRANCES shackleton MURDER IN THE AFTERNOON (#3) ($18.50) Young Harriet and her brother Austin have always been scared of the quarry where their stone mason father works.
So when they find him dead on the cold ground, they rush off quickly
to look for some help. When help arrives, however, the quarry is deserted and there is no sign of the body. Were the children mistaken?
Is their father not dead? Did he simply get up and run away? A sinister disappearing act. It seems like another unusual case requiring the
expertise of Kate Shackleton, and Mary Jane, the children's mother, is
adamant that only she can help.  But Mary Jane is hiding something, a
secret from Kate's past that raises the stakes and puts both Kate and
her family at risk.
BUCKLEY, CARLA DEEPEST SECRET ($18) Twelve years
ago, Eve Lattimore’s life changed forever. Her two-year-old son Tyler on her lap, her husband’s hand in hers, she waited for the child’s
devastating diagnosis: XP, a rare genetic disease, a fatal sensitivity to
sunlight. Eve remembers that day every morning as she hustles Tyler
up the stairs from breakfast before the sun rises, locking her son in his
room, curtains drawn, computer glowing, as he faces another day of
virtual schooling, of virtual friendships. But every moment of vigilance is worth it. This is Eve’s job, to safeguard her boy against the
light, to protect his fragile life each day, to keep him alive, maybe
even long enough for a cure to be found. Tonight, Eve’s life is about
to change again, forever. It’s only an instant on a rainy road, just a
quick text as she sits behind the wheel, and another mother’s child
lies dead in Eve’s headlights. The choice she faces is impossible: confess and be taken from Tyler, or drive away and start to lie like she’s
never lied before.
BUDEWITZ, LESLIE ASSAULT AND PEPPER (#1) ($9.99) After
leaving a dicey marriage and losing a beloved job in a corporate
crash, Pepper Reece has found a new zest for life running a busy
spice and tea shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Her aromatic creations are the talk of the town, and everyone stops by for a cup of her
refreshing spice tea, even other shopkeepers and Market regulars. But
when a panhandler named Doc shows up dead on the store’s doorstep,
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
a Seattle Spice Shop cup in his hand, the local gossip gets too hot for
Pepper to handle, especially after the police arrest one of Pepper’s
staffers, Tory Finch, for murder. Tory seems to know why she’s a
suspect, but she refuses to do anything to curry help herself. Convinced her reticent employee is innocent, Pepper takes it on herself to
investigate. Only, if she’s not careful, Pepper’s nosy ways might
make her next on the killer’s list.
BURLEY, JOHN FORGETTING PLACE ($18.50) Menaker State
Hospital is a curse, a refuge, a prison, a necessity, a nightmare, a salvation. When Dr. Lise Shields arrived at the correctional psychiatric
facility five years ago, she was warned that many of its patients, committed by Maryland's judicial system for perpetrating heinous crimes,
would never leave. But what happens when a place like Menaker is
corrupted, when it becomes a tool to silence the innocent, conceal injustice, contain secrets? Why is it that the newest patient does not
seem to belong there, that the hospital administrator has fallen silent,
and that Lise is being watched by two men with seemingly lethal intent? The answers are closer than she realizes and could cost her everything she holds dear.
CARMACK, AMANDA elizabeth MURDER IN THE QUEEN’S
GARDEN (#3) ($9.99) 1559. Elizabeth has been on the throne for
six months, and life in England seems newly golden. Kate Haywood,
the young queen’s personal musician, has been keeping busy playing
for a merry round of summer parties where famed astrologer Dr. John
Dee and his fantastic horoscopes are all the rage. However, Elizabeth’s favourite stargazer fails to predict the discovery of a skeleton
in the queen’s garden, and that the victim’s identity will call his own
innocence into question. When the doctor’s pupil is the victim of a
second murder, the concerned queen enlists her trusted Kate to clear
the accused killer of wrongdoing.
CASEY, JANE kerrigan KILL (#5) ($21) An expensive British
import. Detective Maeve Kerrigan is away for a colleague's wedding,
and she's enjoying an excuse to spend a beautiful fall weekend relaxing in the English countryside. It's a much-needed break from the grit
and grime of her daily life on the London police force. But even at a
wedding, the job is never far away. Midway through the reception,
Maeve and her abrasive but loyal partner on the police force, DI Josh
Derwent, are called back to London. A fellow policeman has been
murdered, in a compromising position in a public park at night. And
when Maeve and Derwent arrive to speak with the victim's family, his
wife and daughter are surprisingly cold and reticent, which adds further layers of complexity to an already delicate investigation. And
Maeve knows the victim and his family aren't the only ones with
things to hide: the dark secret that her boss, Superintendent Godley,
has been keeping for years is threatening to blow up in his face, and if
that happens, they'll all be caught in the aftermath.
CASH, WILEY THIS DARK ROAD TO MERCY ($18.50) After
their mother unexpectedly dies, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and
her six-year-old sister, Ruby, aren't expecting to see their errant father, Wade, ever again. But the ex–minor league baseball player
who's been gone for years has suddenly appeared at their foster home
to steal them away in the middle of the night. Brady Weller, the girls'
court-appointed guardian, begins looking for them, and quickly turns
up unsettling information linking their father to a multimillion-dollar
robbery. But Brady isn't the only hunter on the trail. Robert Pruitt, a
mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, is determined to find
Wade and claim his due.
CASS, LAURIE BORROWED CRIME (#3) When Minnie loses a
grant that was supposed to keep the bookmobile running, she’s worried her pet project could come to its final page. But she’s determined
to keep her patrons, and Eddie’s fans, happy and well read. She just
needs her boss, Stephen to see things her way, and make sure he
doesn’t see Eddie. The library director doesn’t exactly know about
the bookmobile’s furry co-pilot. But when a volunteer dies on the
e-MOM March 2015 Page 11
bookmobile’s route, Minnie finds her traveling library in an even
more precarious position. Although the death was originally ruled a
hunting accident, a growing stack of clues is pointing towards murder. It’s up to Minnie and Eddie to find the killer.
CHILDS, LAURA tea STEEPED IN EVIL (#15) ($9.99) Theodosia
has never considered herself a wine connoisseur, tea has always
been…well, her cup of tea. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to pass
up an invitation to a fancy wine-tasting party at the upscale
Knighthall Winery, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately, a sweet evening takes on a bitter aftertaste when a dead
body is discovered in one of the wine barrels. The son of proprietor
Jordan Knight has been murdered. Dissatisfied with the police investigation, Knight turns to Theo for help. She’s heard through the
grapevine that there are both family and business problems at
Knighthall. They say in vino veritas, but everyone at the winery
seems to be lying through their teeth. Sorting through the guest list as
well as family and staff, Theo has her pick of suspects. Includes recipes and tea tips.
CHRISTOPHER, ADAM ELEMENTARY: THE GHOST LINE
($9.99) Summons to a bullet-riddled body in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment marks the start of a new case for consulting detectives
Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson. The victim is a subway train driver with a hidden stash of money and a strange Colombian connection,
but why would someone kill him and leave a fortune behind? The
search for the truth will lead the sleuths deep into the hidden underground tunnels beneath New York City, where answers, and more
bodies, may well await them.
CLEELAND, ANNE MURDER IN RETRIBUTION (#2) ($8.99)
Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, Lord Acton, and rookie detective
Kathleen Doyle ruffle more than a few feathers at CID Headquarters
when their relationship comes to light. But office politics quickly become trivial amid a rash of underworld murders. As the body count
climbs, Doyle uncovers a vicious war over lucrative turf between the
Russian mafia and an Irish terrorist group. But their acts of revenge
are almost too much for Scotland Yard to keep up with and when Acton seems unusually troubled by the crimes, Doyle wonders what
sparked the conflict in the first place.
COLLINS, MAX A quarry QUARRY’S CHOICE (#11) ($11.95)
Quarry is a pro in the murder business. When the man he works for
becomes a target himself, Quarry is sent South to remove a traitor in
the ranks. But in this wide-open city, with sin everywhere, and betrayal around every corner, Quarry must make the most dangerous
choice of his deadly career: who to kill?
COOK, JOSH EXAGGERATED MURDER ($16.95) Private investigator Trike Augustine may be a brainiac with deductive skills to rival Sherlock Holmes, but they’re not doing him any good at solving
the case of a missing gazzilionaire because the clues are so stupefyingly—well, stupid. Meanwhile, his sidekicks, Max the former FBI
agent and Lola the artist, don’t quite rise to the level of Dr. Watson,
either. For example, when a large, dead pig turns up on Trike’s floor
in the middle of the night, none of them can figure out what it means.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking as the astronomical reward being offered diminishes drastically every day.
COOK, THOMAS H BLOOD INNOCENTS ($30) This is the
first mystery that Mr. Cook wrote and was originally published in
1980. Due to its higher cost we won’t stock the book but will order it
for you if you would like a copy. Blood seeps into the gutters at the
children’s zoo in Central Park. Two deer have been slaughtered, one
stabbed fifty-seven times and the other slashed across the neck. Normally it would be a case for the Parks Department, but these are no
ordinary deer. The pride of the small menagerie, they were given to
the zoo by a prominent socialite who cannot afford bloody headlines.
The NYPD hands the case to Detective Reardon, star of the homicide
squad. A recent widower at fifty-six, Reardon has seen too many hu-
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
man victims to care much about the two butchered animals. He resents being taken off other pressing cases for the sake of politics, but
soon another killing snaps him to attention. Two women are found
dead in their apartment, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other
with her throat cut. Surely this vicious parallel isn’t a coincidence.
CRAIG, JAMES carlyle SHOOT TO KILL (#7) ($15.99) When
French gangster Tuco Martinez threatens Carlyle and his family, the
inspector has to call on the resources and skills of Dominic Silver to
try and see him off. But Dom won’t do all the dirty work and so Carlyle has to go into hiding. Cut off from his home turf, both literally
and metaphorically, Carlyle struggles to cope with the situation while
meanwhile, back in London, the charismatic major, Christian
Holroyd, is finally spiralling completely out of control?
CUTTER, NICK DEEP ($19.99) Special orders only on this title.
It takes about a week to get it into the store. A strange plague called
the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people
to forget, small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the
not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet.
Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily and there is no
cure. But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the
Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown substance hailed as
“ambrosia” has been discovered, a universal healer, from initial reports. It may just be the key to a universal cure. In order to study this
phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight
miles under the sea’s surface. But now the station is incommunicado,
and it’s up to a brave few to descend through the lightless fathoms in
hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths
and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.
DAHEIM, MARY emma lord ALPINE YEOMAN (#25) ($9.99)
An ill wind blows through Alpine, but Advocate publisher Emma
Lord and Sheriff Milo Dodge seem immune to the prevailing angst.
The newlyweds’ domestic idyll is most definitely over when a dead
man is discovered near the fish hatchery and nobody has a clue as to
his identity. Vida Runkel may have insight, but Emma’s redoubtable
House & Home editor is mad at the world and saying little. Moreover,
whispers of scandal travel through the quaint streets when some high
school girls mysteriously take a walk on the wild side. And then Milo’s dedicated deputy, Sam Heppner, a true yeoman, suddenly goes
AWOL. What’s happening in Alpine? If Milo knows, he’s not telling
Emma. And Emma’s again headed for trouble when she starts snooping. The situation grows even more fraught when a shocking link is
revealed between the mystery corpse and one of Alpine’s own, unearthing a long-buried dark secret. Tongues are wagging on Front
Street—and the gossip contains an air of menace. I wonder what she
is going to do after we get Alpine Z….?
DE GIOVANNI, MAURIZIO VIPER (#6) ($19) Springtime proffers fragrant temptations to the men and women of Naples. But evil
also lurks in the sweet-smelling spring air. It is one week before Easter, Naples, 1932. At the high-class brothel in the centre of town
known as Paradiso, Viper, the most famous prostitute of all, is found
dead. Suffocated with a pillow. Her last client swears that when he
left her she was alive and well. But when her next client arrived, he
found her dead. Who killed her and why? Ricciardi has to untangle a
complex knot of greed, frustration, jealousy and rancor in order to
solve the riddle of Viper’s death. As he does so, he will discover no
end of conflicting emotions just beneath the surface of a city that lives
on passion.
DEAVER, JEFFERY OCTOBER LIST ($9) Two days ago, Gabriela's life was normal. Then, out of the blue, she gets word that her
six-year-old daughter has been taken. She's given an ultimatum: pay
half a million dollars and find a mysterious document known as the
"October List" within 30 hours, or she'll never see her child again. 
DISHER, GARRY challis DRAGON MAN (#1) ($9.99) Meet
e-MOM March 2015 Page 12
Hal Challis, Detective for the Mornington Peninsula police force in
Southeast Australia, in the first investigation in this prize-winning
crime series. It was originally published in 1999. A serial killer is on
the loose in a small coastal town near Melbourne, Australia. Detective
Inspector Hal Challis and his team must apprehend him before he
strikes again. But first, Challis has to contend with the editor of a local newspaper who undermines his investigation at every turn, and
with his wife, who attempts to resurrect their marriage through longdistance phone calls from a sanitarium, where she has been committed for the past eight years for attempted murder—his.
DUGONI, ROBERT MY SISTER'S GRAVE (#1) ($20.95) Tracy
Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding
her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed.
She doesn’t believe that Edmund House, a convicted rapist and the
man condemned for Sarah’s murder, is the guilty party. Motivated by
the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers. When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their
hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State,
Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she
searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that
will forever change her relationship to her past and open the door to
deadly danger.
EGHOLM, ELSEBETH boutrup DEAD SOULS (#2) ($22.99)
For fans of Jussi Adler-Olsen and Camilla Lackberg comes Danish
crime writer Elsebeth Egholm. On All Hallows' Eve, ex-convict Peter
Boutrup is visiting his best friend's grave when her estranged mother
appears. Her son, Magnus, has disappeared, and she begs Peter to
look for him. The next day a young nun is pulled out of the moat at
the convent in Djursland. She has been garrotted and Peter, who
works there as a carpenter, was the last person to see her alive. Meanwhile, diver Kir Røjel finds an old box resting on the seabed. Inside
are human bones. They are sixty years old, but the victim had also
been garrotted. While Peter is looking for Magnus, Detective Mark
Bille Hansen is assigned to the case. He is determined to link the
bones in the box with the girl in the moat, but the hunt for the truth
leads both he and Peter down a path so dark, they fear they may never
return. The first in the series is Three Dog Night ($22.99).
FIFIELD, CHRISTY MURDER TIES THE KNOT (#4) ($9.99) It’s
winter in Keyhole Bay, Florida, and while the tourist trade is slow,
souvenir shop owner Glory Martine is busy with her best friend’s
wedding. As her friends Karen and Riley approach their wedding day,
Glory could use a break from the nuptial madness. She takes a peaceful drive to Alabama’s piney woods to pick up the wedding quilt she
ordered from a supplier. But the supplier, Beth, has disappeared along
with the quilt and her husband, Everett. Glory learns that two men
were found murdered near Beth and Everett’s home and that the couple is wanted for questioning. Believing they are innocent, Glory convinces them to cooperate with authorities. But when they’re thrown in
jail, Glory vows to catch the real killer before one happy couple
walks down the aisle and another gets sent up the river. The first three
in the series are Murder Buys a T Shirt, Murder hooks a Mermaid
($8.99 each) and Murder Sends a Postcard ($9.99).
FLETCHER & BAIN ALOHA BETRAYED ($9.99) Jessica is on
the Hawaiian island of Maui, giving a lecture on community involvement in police investigations. Her co-lecturer is legendary retired detective Mike Kane, who shares his love of Hawaiian lore, legends,
and culture with Jessica. But the talking stops when the body of a colleague is found at the rocky foot of a cliff. Mala Kapule, a botanist
and popular professor at Maui College, was known for her activism
and efforts on behalf of the volcanic crater Haleakala. Plans to place
the world’s largest solar telescope there split the locals, with Mala arguing fiercely to preserve the delicate ecology of the area. Now it’s
up to Jessica and Mike to uncover who was driven to silence the sci-
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
entist and betray the spirit of aloha.
FREVELETTI, JAMIE GENEVA STRATEGY ($18) On one
evening in Washington, DC, several high-ranking members of government disappear in a mass kidnapping. Among the kidnapped is
Nick Rendel, a computer software coding expert in charge of drone
programming and strategy. He is the victim with the most dangerous
knowledge, including confidential passwords and codes that are used
to program the drones. If revealed, his kidnappers could reprogram
the drones to strike targets within the United States. Jon Smith and
the Covert One team begin a worldwide search to recover the officials, but as the first kidnapping victims are rescued, they show disturbing signs of brainwashing or mind-altering drugs. Smith's investigation leads him to Fort Detrick, where a researcher, Dr. Laura Taylor, had been attempting to create a drug to wipe memory from soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. But Dr. Taylor's
research was suspended almost a year ago, when she was placed in a
mental institution. Now, if Smith doesn't figure out the brainwashing
drug, and track down the kidnapped Nick Rendel, the kidnappers will
soon have the power to carry out drone strikes anywhere in the world.
FULLER, SAMUEL BRAINQUAKE ($14.95) The bagmen who
transport money for organized crime live by a set of rules: no personal relationships, no ties, no women and never, ever look inside the
bag you’re carrying. Paul Page was the perfect bagman, despite suffering from a rare brain disorder. But that ended the day he saw a
beautiful Mob wife become a Mob widow. Now Paul is going to
break every rule he’s lived by, even if it means he might be left holding the bag.
GAGE, LEIGHTON silva WAYS OF EVIL MEN (#7) ($14.95)
The Awana tribe, who live in the remote Amazon jungle in the Brazilian state of Pará, have dwindled to only 41 members and now 39 of
them have dropped dead of what looks like poison. The neighbouring
white townsfolk don’t seem to be mourning the genocide much, in
fact, the only person who seems to care at all is Jade Calmon, the official tribal relations agent assigned to the area. She wants justice for
the two survivors, a father and his 8-year-old son. But racism is deeply entrenched and no one is going to help her get to the truth. Unfortunately, this is far from the first time the Brazilian federal police
have had a tribal genocide to investigate. Chief Inspector Mario Silva
and his team are sent in from Brasilia to try to solve the increasingly
complex case just as a local white man is discovered murdered.
Someone has done their best to frame the surviving Awana man, and
the town is about to erupt.
GAILEY, SAMUEL W DEEP WINTER ($18) As a powerful
winter blizzard converges on a small Pennsylvania town, a local
woman is found brutally murdered.  All evidence points to Danny
Bedford, the town outcast, when he is discovered cradling the bloody
body.  Danny manages to escape into the darkened woods, but he is
pursued by the vindictive deputy sheriff, the victim's brothers, and
distraught townspeople demanding justice.  During the freezing night
that follows, an intricate web of lies is uncovered, revealing that not
everything in the town is quite what it seems, which sets off an unstoppable chain of events that changes the townspeople forever.
GORE, STEVEN donnally NIGHT IS THE HUNTER ($18.50)
Twenty years ago, Judge Ray McMullin proved to the people of San
Francisco that he could pull that trigger by sentencing Israel
Dominguez to death for a gangland murder. But it meant suppressing
his own doubts about whether the punishment really did fit the
crime. Now, as the execution date nears, the conscience-wracked
judge confesses his unease to former homicide detective Harlan Donnally on a riverbank in far Northern California. And after immersing
himself in the Norteño and Sureño gang wars, which left trails of bullets and blood crisscrossing the state, and in the betrayals of both cops
and crooks alike, Donnally is forced to question not only whether the
penalty was undeserved but the conviction itself. Soon those doubts
e-MOM March 2015 Page 13
and questions double back, for in the aging judge's panic, in his lapses
of memory and his confusions, Donnally begins to wonder whether
he's chasing the facts of the case or just phantoms of a failing mind.
But there's no turning back, for the edge of night is fast closing in on
Dominguez, on McMullin, and on Donnally himself.
GROSS, ANDREW EVERYTHING TO LOSE ($12.50) While
driving along a suburban back road, Hilary Cantor, who's just lost her
job and whose deadbeat husband has left her to care for her son who
has Asperger's, witnesses a freakish accident when a deer suddenly
darts in front of the car ahead of her. The driver careens down a hill
and slams into a tree. Rushing to help, she discovers the car smoking,
the driver dead, and a satchel on the floor stuffed with a half million
dollars. That money could prevent her family's ruin and keep her son
in school. In an instant, this honest, achieving woman who has always
done the responsible thing makes a decision that puts her in the centre
of a maelstrom of unforeseeable consequences and life-threatening recriminations. It isn't long before someone comes looking for the money, and as they get closer and closer to Hilary, she is pulled into a terrifying scheme involving a twenty-year-old murder, an old woman
whose entire life has been washed out to sea by the storm, and a powerful figure determined to maintain the secret that can destroy him.
With everything to lose and putting everything she loves at risk, Hilary joins up with a dogged police official from Staten Island who has
his own connections to the money and is dealing with his family's
tragic struggles in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Together they
must fight to bring down an enemy who will stop at nothing to keep
buried what that money was meant to silence.
HAGBERG, DAVID macgarvey BLOOD PACT (#17) ($10.99)
A large portion of the fabulous treasure originally stolen by conquistadors of the eighteenth century was buried in the desert of southern
New Mexico by Spanish monks. Jacob Ambli, a Catholic priest, was
sent as a spy on a Spanish military mission to find seven caches left
for the Church. He kept a diary showing the locations, but was murdered trying to get back to Rome, and the journal was lost. Now, a
century and a half later, the diary has come to light, and the Spanish
government, Cuban intelligence agency, and the Catholic Church are
racing to be the first to claim it. Kirk McGarvey is approached by a
shadowy organization that wants to beat all of them to the book, the
Voltaire Society, a mysterious group whose purpose is shrouded in
the history of the United States. The chase takes Mac from Washington to Malta and finally to Seville, where he comes up against a fifth
foe, one of the most ruthless assassins he has ever confronted, who
has made a blood pact with the agents of the devil to find the lost
treasure no matter what the cost.
HAINES, CAROLYN bones BOOTY BONES (#14) ($9.99) Sarah Booth Delaney's fiancé, Graf, is recovering from a severe leg injury, and Sarah Booth knows just how to help him heal. She's arranged a romantic getaway for the two of them at a lovely beach cottage on Dauphin Island off the Gulf Coast. On the first day of their island adventure, they take a historical tour led by a woman named Angela, who is well-versed in local lore, including but not limited to rumours of pirate treasure hidden somewhere on the island.
HALE, REBECCA H cats HOW TO CATCH A CAT (#6) ($9.99)
A serial killer with a peculiar penchant for City Hall interns is on the
loose in San Francisco, and it’s up to me and my two cats, Rupert and
Isabella, to put a stop to the spree. Unfortunately, worrying about my
uncle Oscar’s failing health and assisting with the interim mayor’s
America’s Cup regatta doesn’t leave me with much opportunity to
chase down clues.Could the key to apprehending the killer be found
in San Francisco’s sailing history? The first European vessel to pass
through the Golden Gate contained a familiar cast of human, and feline, passengers as well as an elusive killer who used a similar murder
weapon. Will the past catch up to the present in time to crack the
case?
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
HERBERT, A L MURDER WITH FRIED CHICKEN AND WAFFLES ($16.95) Welcome to Mahalia's Sweet Tea, the finest soul
food restaurant in Prince George's County, Maryland. In between preparing her famous cornbread and mashed potatoes so creamy "they'll
make you want to slap your Momma," owner Halia Watkins is about
to dip her spoon into a grisly mystery. (I wonder if there is a recipe
for those mashed potatoes in the book!). Halia Watkins has her hands
full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin,
Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking
entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough
when he's alive, but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic
tile after hours is much worse. Marcus had his enemies, and the cast
iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name
out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime
suspect. Features delicious recipes from Mahalia's Sweet Tea, including Sour Cream Corn Bread and Sweet Corn Casserole! (But mashed
potatoes??? I’ll have to get Marian to look).
HURLEY, GRAHAM suttle TOUCHING DISTANCE (#2)
($15.99) Remember to ask us if you bought this title last year in a
larger trade paperback edition. DS Jimmy Suttle is trying to get his
life back on track. His marriage has fallen apart and he rarely sees his
young daughter, Grace. But then a murder shuts the door on the chaos
of his personal life. The victim was shot through the head at the
wheel of his car on a lonely moorland road. The only witness? His
two-year-old son, strapped into the rear child seat. Within days, two
more killings, equally professional, equally without motive. Meanwhile, Suttle's estranged wife is embarking on an investigation of her
own in the world of journalism. But the story brings her to the question at the very heart of Jimmy's case: what does it take to make a
man kill? The first in the series is Western Approaches ($15.99).
JACKSON, LISA CLOSE TO HOME ($9.99) Along the shores of
Oregon's wild Columbia River, the Victorian mansion where Sarah
McAdams grew up is as foreboding as she remembers. The moment
she and her two daughters, Jade and Gracie, pull up the isolated drive,
Sarah is beset by uneasy memories of her cold, distant mother, of the
half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night
when Sarah was found on the widow's walk, feverish and delirious.
But Sarah has vowed to make a fresh start and renovate the old place.
Between tending to her girls and the rundown property, she has little
time to dwell on the past. Until a new, more urgent menace enters the
picture. One by one, teenage girls are disappearing. Frantic for her
daughters' safety, Sarah feels the house's walls closing in on her
again. Somewhere deep in her memory is the key to a very real and
terrifying danger. And only by confronting her most terrifying fears
can she stop the nightmare roaring back to life once more.
JAMES, PETER ATOM BOMB ANGEL ($16.99) Originally
published in 1982. Terrorists are threatening to sabotage Britain's nuclear power plants. One nuclear explosive smuggled inside a reactor
would turn the entire core into a massive atom bomb and bring death
and disease to millions of people for centuries to come. When Sir
Isaac Quoit, chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority, disappears
without trace, MI5 are alerted to the mysterious Operation Angel.
Slick superspy Max Flynn is briefed to crack the code, but can he beat
the deadline before Angel strikes? Who are the terrorists? Why are
the KGB involved? What are their aims and which power stations
will they sabotage? If he does not act fast, Britain will be engulfed in
a nuclear nightmare.
KUZNETSOV, SERGEY BUTTERFLY SKIN ($16.95) When a
brutal and sadistic serial killer begins stalking the streets of Moscow,
Xenia, an ambitious young newspaper editor, takes it upon herself to
attempt to solve the mystery of the killer's identity. As her obsession
with the killer grows, Xenia devises an elaborate website with the intention of ensnaring the murderer, only to discover something disturb-
e-MOM March 2015 Page 14
ing about herself: her own unhealthy fascination with the sexual savagery of the murders.
LAMBDIN, DEWEY adam lewri KINGS MARAUDER (#20)
($20.50) The year 1807 starts out badly for Captain Alan Lewrie,
Royal Navy. He's living at his father's estate at Anglesgreen, recovering from a wound suffered in the South Atlantic. At last there's a
bright spot. Admiralty awards him a new commission, not a frigate
but a clumsy, slow two-decker, Fourth Rate 50. Are his frigate days
over for good? Lewrie's ordered to Gibraltar, but Foreign Office Secret Branch's spies and manipulators have use for him, again!
HMS Sapphire is the wrong ship for the task, raising chaos and mayhem along the Spanish coasts, and servicing agents and informers.
What he's ordered to do needs soldiers, landing craft, and a transport
ship, all of which he doesn't have, and must find a way to finagle it.
He could beg off and say that it's asking too much, but Lewrie is not a
man to admit failure and defeat, and his quest might prove the most
daunting of his long naval career.
LEON, DONNA BY ITS COVER (#23) ($21.95) One afternoon,
Brunetti gets a frantic call from the director of a prestigious Venetian
library. Someone has stolen pages out of several rare books. After a
round of questioning, the case seems clear: the culprit must be the
man who requested the volumes, a visiting American professor. But
the man fled the library earlier that day, and after checking his credentials, it becomes clear that he is not who he said he was. As the investigation proceeds, the suspects multiply. And when a seemingly
harmless character turns up brutally murdered, Brunetti must question
his expectations about what makes a man innocent, or guilty.
LEVINE, LAURA jaine austen KILLING CUPID (#12) ($8.99)
When Jaine lands a job writing web copy and brochures for matchmaker Joy Amoroso, she's excited for a chance to help the lovelorn,
until she realizes Joy is a ruthless taskmaster who screams at her employees for the smallest infractions, pads her website with pictures of
professional models posing as clients, and offers up convincing but
empty promises of love.  So it's no surprise when the chiseling cupid
turns up dead at a Valentine's Day mixer. Now, finding the culprit
may prove harder than spotting that elusive caramel praline in a box
of chocolates
MACDONALD, JOHN D travis SCARLET RUSE (#14), TURQUOISE LAMENT (#15), DREADFUL LEMON SKY (#16), EMPTY COPPER SEA (#17), CINNAMON SKIN (#20), LONELY SILVER RAIN (#21), ($18 each) and BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE
SHROUD (#6) ($19) We recently ordered some Travis McGee stories for a customer. If there is a “colour” you don’t think you have
read, ask us and we will see if it is back in print.
MACHUGH/MCHUGH, MARY hoofers FLAMENCO FLAN
AND FATALITIES (#2) ($8.99) The high-kicking Happy Hoofers,
Tina, Janice, Pat, Mary Louise, and Gini, have been booked to flaunt
their fabulous flamenco footwork on a luxury train ride through
northern Spain. But when a blowhard talk show host is found deader
than four-day-old flan--with Gini as suspect numero uno, the feisty
friends waste no time stepping into their sleuthing shoes to protect
one of their own. The dynamite dancers will have to step up their
game before a clever killer brings the curtain down on one of them
for good!  The first in the series is Chorus Line, Caviar and Corpses
($8.99).
MACKEVETT/MCKEVETT, G A savannah KILLER PHYSIQUE (#19) ($8.99) Plus-sized P.I. Savannah Reid gets a taste of
the high life when she attends a Hollywood premiere on the arm of
husband Dirk Coulter. Savannah may be a newlywed, but even she
gets weak in the knees when she meets celebrity athlete-turned-movie
-star Jason Tyrone. So imagine how she feels when the star’s turns up
dead. Though the autopsy reveals Jason may have gotten his killer
body through doping, no one wants to believe the beloved athlete is a
fraud, least of all Savannah. Soon she’s deeply immersed in the dark
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
world of body enhancing drugs, and wondering if the world-class
gym where Jason worked out is really just a front for a lucrative drug
ring. Was Jason’s death the price he paid for threatening to expose
other celebrities caught in the clutch of keeping a flawless image? Or
was everyone’s favourite hero a victim of his own desire to always be
at the top of his game?
MALLOCK FACES OF GOD ($18) Murder and depravity are Police Commissioner Amédée Mallock’s daily bread. As far as he is
concerned, mankind has been thoroughly abandoned by God, and the
visions that haunt him do nothing to disabuse him of this notion. But
nothing he has encountered has prepared him for the sudden appearance of a serial killer dubbed “the Make-up Artist.” The bodies of the
killer’s first victims, found in four separate neighbourhoods of Paris,
are monstrous works of art, baroque masterpieces of depravity, and
demented expressions of corrupted piety. These crimes are unprecedented in their ferocity and their intricacy, and the deeper Mallock investigates the greater the mysteries and the enigmas. Foremost among
them: is a solution to a series of crimes behind which the devil himself seems to lurk even conceivable?
MARSTON, EDWARD home fron FIVE DEAD CANARIES (#3)
($17.99) Marmion and Keedy return for a third time in the acclaimed
Home Front Detective series. The first two are Bespoke Murders and
Instrument of Slaughter ($17.99 each). As thousands of Brits are
fighting on the Front Line, a new breed of women emerges to hold the
Home Front together. Fiercely independent and fiery-spirited, these
women are a raucous group of munition workers. One group of
'canaries', so-called because of their chemically-stained yellow faces,
decide to celebrate leader Florrie Duncan?s birthday but their frolics
are soon cut short when all but one are killed in a startling explosion.
With five times the victims there are five times the possible motivations for the murder, and Marmion and Keedy certainly uncover some
surprising clues. Grappling with this perplexing murder mystery involves marital dysfunction, failed bomb plots and an extremely competitive women?s football team.
MOFINA, RICK FULL TILT ($10.50) Deep in the woods of upstate New York a woman flees a blazing barn. She is burned beyond
recognition, and her dying words point police to a labyrinth of
"confinement rooms", rooms designed to hold human beings captive,
where they make other chilling discoveries. In Manhattan, Kate Page,
a single mom and reporter with a newswire service, receives a heartstopping call from a detective on the case. A guardian angel charm
found at the scene fits the description of the one belonging to Kate's
sister, Vanessa, who washed away after a car crash in a mountain river twenty years ago. Kate has spent much of her life searching for the
truth behind her little sister's disappearance. Now, a manhunt for a
killer who's kept a collection of victims prisoner for years without detection becomes her final chance to either mourn Vanessa's death or
save her life.
MORRIGAN, LAURA HORSE OF A DIFFERENT KILLER (#3)
(#9.99) Animal behaviorist Grace Wilde’s psychic ability gives her
insight into the minds of all kinds of creatures. If only humans were
as easy to read. Dead men may tell no tales, but they can screw up
your life with a few phone calls. Grace’s abusive ex-brother-in-law,
Anthony Ortega, needs her help, at least that’s what he said on the
messages he left before his sudden death. Grace is inclined to let the
matter rest in peace, but when her sister is named a suspect, Grace decides to get to the bottom of the cryptic calls. Her only lead is Ortega’s fiancée, who believes that he had arranged to surprise her with
the purchase of a Frisian gelding named Heart. The horse was being
stabled at the R-n-R Ranch, but was taken in the middle of the night.
Now, with her sister in trouble and a missing horse on her hands,
Grace hopes the information harnessed from her psychic skills will be
enough to catch the killer. The first two in the series are Woof at the
Door ($8.99) and Tiger’s Tale ($9.99).
e-MOM March 2015 Page 15
MOSLEY, WALTER DEBBIE DOESN’T DO IT ANYMORE
($17.95) Millions of men and (no doubt many) women have watched
famed black porn queen Debbie Dare, she of the blond wig and blue
contacts, “do it” on television and computer screens in every combination of partners and positions imaginable. But after an unexpected
and thunderous on-set orgasm catches her unawares, Debbie returns
home to find her porn-producer husband dead, electrocuted in their
hot tub in the midst of “auditioning” an aspiring young starlet. Burdened with massive debt incurred by her husband, and which various
L.A. heavies want to collect on, Debbie must find a way to extricate
herself from the peculiar subculture of the porn industry and reconcile
herself to sacrifices she’s made along the way.
MUIR, FRANK gilchrist MEATING ROOM (#5) ($24) An expensive British import. When the body of Thomas Magner's business
partner is found dead in his car on the outskirts of Anstruther, all evidence points to suicide. And Magner himself, a wealthy property developer, is currently under investigation for a series of alleged rapes
from 30 years ago. In total 15 women are prepared to go to court to
testify against Magner but one by one they inexplicably withdraw
their complaints until only five remain. With the CPS now reconsidering its case, one of Magner's accusers is killed in a hit-and-run and
the abandoned car is found to be registered to one T Magner. DCI
Andy Gilchrist is assigned to the hit-and-run case and soon discovers
that Magner's murky past is very much seeping into the present. How
did he acquire his wealth? How did his first wife die? Why did his
business partner commit suicide? And was Magner a serial rapist in
his youth? Or was he something far worse? A terrific series.
MURPHY, JENNIFER I LOVE YOU MORE ($18.95) Picasso
Lane is twelve years old when her father, Oliver, is murdered at their
summer beach house in North Carolina. Her mother, Diana, is the primary suspect, at least until the police discover his second wife, Jewels, and his third, Bert. The new widows say they have never met, but
Picasso knows otherwise. She remembers the late-night visits, the
hushed phone calls, and the whispered planning. Soon, however, it
becomes clear that the “perfect murder” was not so perfect after all.
Each woman pleads innocence, claiming that she backed out of the
plan at the last second. And it’s up to Picasso to sorts through the lies
and half-truths.
NADEL, BARBARA ikmen LAND OF THE BLIND (#17)
($22.99) A body is found in the ruined Constantinople hippodrome: a
woman, clutching a piece of red stone. She's recently given birth, but
there's no sign of the baby. Inspector Cetin Ikmen discovers she was a
Byzantine specialist on a crusade to protect the historic but now
squalid areas of Istanbul that her enemy, property developer Ahmet
Oden, seeks to destroy and rebuild. As Ikmen searches for the lost
child and the truth behind her death, the people of Istanbul rise up in
protest against their government in Gezi Park, and the city lurches into chaos and anger. Against this background, Ikmen will unravel a
tale of ancient hostility and modern desires, where the truth is concealed within the secret history of this antique city.
NIVEN, JOHN AMATEURS ($18.50) Gary Irvine's wife refuses
to sleep with him, so he pursues an even stingier mistress: golf. But
despite his spending unconscionable amounts of time and money, his
game is wretched. Until the day he takes a perfect swing and then
everything goes black. After waking up from a coma a few weeks later, with a golf-ball-sized dent in his temple, Gary discovers that his
last perfect swing has been imprinted on his brain. However, his newfound prowess is accompanied by some troubling side effects, most
noticeably Tourette's. As Gary miraculously advances to the final
round of the British Open, his delinquent brother, Lee, stumbles from
one botched drug deal to another, his orbit drawing ever nearer to the
terrifying local crime lord Ranta Campbell. With their lives on the
line, Gary and Lee must rediscover the ties that bind to survive a
blood-soaked final round.
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
NIVEN, JOHN KILL YOUR FRIENDS ($18.50) As the twentieth
century breathes its very last, with Britpop at its zenith, twenty-sevenyear-old A&R man Steven Stelfox is slashing and burning his way
through London’s music industry. Blithely crisscrossing the globe in
search of the next megahit, fueled by greed and inhuman quantities of
cocaine, Stelfox freely indulges in an unending orgy of selfgratification. But the industry is changing fast and the hits are drying
up, and the only way he’s going to salvage his sagging career is by
taking the idea of “cutthroat” to murderous new levels.
ORGAIN, DIANA FIRST DATE WITH DEATH (#1) ($9.99) What
was Georgia thinking? Sure, some cad ditched her at the altar, but can
she really find love on TV? Her best friend, and producer of the reality show Love or Money, thinks so. Ten men. Ten adventure-filled
dates. What can go wrong? For starters, a faulty bungee cord that
hurls Georgia’s first date into a tragic spiral off the Golden Gate
Bridge. He’s replaced by Paul Sanders, Georgia’s former fiancé. But
the cop isn’t looking for a TV gig. Suspecting that the lover’s leap
was no accident, Paul’s going undercover. When another bachelor
gets a fatal kiss-off, the reality is that someone has killer new plans
for the show and for Georgia herself. Now, under the threat of permanent cancellation, Georgia fears that the only man on the set she can
trust is the one man she just can’t count on.
OSWALD, JAMES maclean DEAD MEN’S BONES (#4) ($24)
An expensive British import. Morag Weatherly and her two young
daughters have been shot by husband Andrew, an influential politician, before he turned the gun on himself. But what would cause a
rich, successful man to snap so suddenly? For Inspector Tony
McLean, this apparently simple but high-profile case leads him into a
world of power and privilege. And the deeper he digs, the more he realises he's being manipulated by shadowy factions. Under pressure to
wrap up the case, McLean instead seeks to uncover layers of truth,
putting the lives of everyone he cares about at risk.
PATTERSON, JAMES (with DAVID ELIS) INVISIBLE ($18)
Everyone thinks Emmy Dockery is crazy. Obsessed with finding the
link between hundreds of unsolved cases, Emmy has taken leave from
her job as an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an
all-consuming fire. Not even Emmy's ex-boyfriend, field agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, will believe her that hundreds of kidnappings,
rapes, and murders are all connected. That is, until Emmy finds a
piece of evidence he can't afford to ignore. More murders are reported
by the day and they're all inexplicable. No motives, no murder weapons, no suspects. Could one person really be responsible for these unthinkable crimes?
PERSSON, LEIF G W backstr LINDA, AS IN THE LINDA
MURDER (#1) ($27) A very expensive British import. Winner of
the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel 2014. In
the middle of an unusually hot Swedish summer, a young woman
studying at the Vaxjo Police Academy is brutally murdered. Police
Inspector Evert Bäckström is unwillingly drafted in from Stockholm
to head up the investigation. Egotistical, vain and utterly prejudiced
against everything, Bäckström is a man who has no sense of duty or
responsibility, thinks everyone, with the exception of himself, is an
imbecile and is only really capable of warm feelings towards his pet
goldfish and the nearest bottle of liquor. If they are to solve the case,
his long suffering team must work around him, following the scant
few leads which remain after Bäckström's intransigence has let the
trail go cold.
QUARTEY, KWEI darko MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS
(#3) ($14.95) A canoe washes up at a Ghanaian off-shore oil rig
site. Inside it are the bodies of a prominent, wealthy couple, Charles
and Fiona Smith-Aidoo, who have been ritualistically murdered. Pillars in their community, they are mourned by everyone, but especially
by their niece Sapphire. She is not happy that months have passed
e-MOM March 2015 Page 16
since the murder and the local police have made no headway in figuring out who committed the gruesome crime. Detective Inspector Darko Dawson of the Accra police force is sent out to Cape Three Points
to investigate. The more he learns about the case, the more convoluted it becomes. Three Points has long been occupied by traditional
fishing populations, but real estate entrepreneurs and wealthy oil
companies have been trying to bribe the indigenous inhabitants to
move out. Dawson unearths a host of motives for murder, ranging
from personal vendettas to corporate conspiracies.
REDFERN, JON endersby CHILDREN OF THE TIDE (#2)
($19.99) London: the early 1840s. The birth of young Queen Victoria's first child is taken as an auspicious sign for all. But on a cold
March night, a spree of dark crimes in shadowy workhouses shocks
the city. When Inspector Owen Endersby, of the recently formed London Detective Police, learns that the string of identical murders and
abductions have all taken place under similar circumstances, he fears
a monster is prowling the city. How long until the murderer strikes
again? Is this the work of a diabolical killer, or a madman? Facts are
scarce. Endersby and his sergeant, Thomas Caldwell, must start an investigation based on the fitful testimonies of terrified girls and one
peculiar clue: a piece of curtain lace found in the throats of the victims. The first in the series is Trumpets Sound No More ($20.95).
ROBB, J.D. FESTIVE IN DEATH (#39) ($9.99) Personal trainer
Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn’t count the
kitchen knife in his well-toned chest. Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who were loved and left by the narcissistic
gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler’s enemies,
she’s also dealing with her Christmas shopping list plus the guest list
for her and her billionaire husband’s upcoming holiday bash. Feeling
less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim
and solve the mystery of his death. There are just a few investigating
days left before Christmas, and as New Year’s 2061 approaches, this
homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.
ROBERTS, NORA garden BLACK ROSE (#2) ($19) Special order only. A Harper has always lived at Harper House, the centuriesold mansion just outside Memphis. And for as long as anyone alive
remembers, the ghostly Harper Bride has walked the halls, singing
lullabies at night. At forty-seven, Rosalind Harper is a woman whose
experiences have made her strong enough to bend without breaking
and to weather any storm. A widow with three grown sons, she survived a disastrous second marriage and built her ‘In the Garden’
nursery from the ground up. Through the years, In the Garden has become more than just a thriving business, it is a symbol of hope and independence to Roz, and to the two women she shares it with. Newlywed Stella and new mother Hayley are the sisters of her heart, and together, the three of them are the future of In the Garden. Hired to investigate Roz’s Harper ancestors, Dr. Mitchell Carnegie finds himself
just as intrigued by Roz herself. And as they begin to resurrect old secrets, Roz is shocked to find herself falling for the fascinating genealogist, even when he learns more about her than anyone has before.
The first in the series is Blue Dahlia ($19), with one more title to
come in the trilogy.
RUSSELL, LEIGH steel FATAL ACT (#6) ($14.99) After a
glamorous young TV soap star dies in a car crash, all eyes are on Detective Geraldine Steel to discover what caused the tragic accident.
Another driver was involved in the collision but seems to have miraculously walked away unscathed and has now vanished. The deceased
had no obvious enemies and nothing to hide, so the investigation
seems to be stalling. But when another young actress is found dead, it
becomes painfully clear that there is a murderer on the loose targeting
beautiful, famous women. The only problem is that whoever is committing these crimes isn't leaving any clues. With public pressure
mounting, Geraldine Steel unwittingly risks her sergeant's life in their
search to track down a serial killer. 
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
RYAN, ANNELISE mattie STIFF PENALTY (#6) ($8.99) Deputy coroner Mattie Winston knows a thing or two about dead bodies.
That's why she's on the case of Derrick Ames, a high school math
teacher stabbed to death with a barbecue fork straight to the heart.
Sure, she's turned up some motives and a few suspects, but nothing
adds up. Especially when the evidence points to Ames's teenage son.
Newly pregnant Mattie can't believe it, even as her own longestranged father may be following her. But one thing's certain, she'd
better start figuring things out fast, or a deadly perpetrator could be
subtracting two more victims from the population of Sorenson, Wisconsin.
SCARROW, SIMON cato BLOOD CROWS (#12) ($15.99) For
nearly ten years, the Roman Empire has fought ceaselessly to
strengthen its hold over Britannia. But opposition from native tribes
led by the ruthless warrior Caratacus threatens to destroy everything.
Prefect Cato and Centurion Macro are summoned by Governor Ostorius to Londinium. Tasked with leading a newly formed cavalry cohort into the heartland of Wales, they must destroy the growing resistance. But with Caratacus hatching increasingly ambitious plans
and disorder threatening from within Macro and Cato's own ranks,
this final test will push the soldiers to their limits. And if they do not
emerge as victors, the Emperor Claudius's rule may be at stake, and
the very foundations of the Roman Empire could be shattered irrevocably.
SCOTTOLINE, LISA SAVE ME ($9.99) Nobody could have
foreseen what would happen the day that Rose McKenna volunteers
in the cafeteria of her daughter's elementary school. Rose does it to
keep a discreet eye on her third-grader, Melly, a sweet, if shy, child
who was born with a facial birthmark that has become her own personal bull's-eye. Melly has been targeted by the mean girl at their new
school and gets bullied every day, placing Rose in a no-win position
familiar to parents everywhere. Do we step in to protect our children
when they need us, or does that make things worse? When the bully
starts to tease Melly yet again, Rose is about to leap into action, but
right then, the unthinkable happens. Rose finds herself in a nightmare,
faced with an emergency decision that no mother should ever have to
make. Would she sacrifice another mother's child to save her own?
What she decides in that split second derails Rose's life and jeopardizes everything she holds dear, her family, her marriage and even her
own life.
SEYMOUR, GERALD IN HONOUR BOUND ($15.99) Originally published in 1984. Barney Crispin, a Captain in the SAS, is as
tough as they come. He is sent on an urgent mission to the Afghanistan border: to destroy one of the Soviet Mi-24 helicopters, a highly
sophisticated and virtually invulnerable piece of military equipment,
and retrieve the hardware. In order to do so, he needs the help of the
Mujahidin resistance and must first train them in the ways of stealth
and sabotage. But the guerillas he trains are ill-equipped and disorganised. Their attempt fails and several of them are killed in the process. Against orders and with only eight missiles and a local boy as
his guide, Barney decides to undertake the mission alone, his own
solitary battle for vengeance
SHEMILT, JANE DAUGHTER ($18.50) Jenny is a successful
family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon. But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old
Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly
ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide
search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken. As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios, kidnapping, murder, seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate
Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers and what she finds
disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew,
has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the trac-
e-MOM March 2015 Page 17
es her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi
from the girl she thought she’d raised.
SIMENON, GEORGES A MAN’S HEAD ($12) As per the publisher: A new translation of Georges Simenon's atmospheric novel
set in the bustling streets of Paris, book nine in the new Penguin Maigret series. Slowly the Czech was becoming animated, but in a muted
way, so typical of the man. Maigret now noticed his hands, which
were long, surprisingly white and dotted with freckles. They seemed
to reach out and take part in the conversation. 'Let's be clear that it's
not your professionalism which I question. If you understand nothing,
and I mean absolutely nothing, it's because from the very start you've
been working with facts which had been falsified.' Maigret sets out to
prove the innocence of a man condemned to death for a brutal murder. As his audacious plan to uncover the truth unfolds, he encounters
rich American expatriates, some truly dangerous characters and their
hidden motives. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret
novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous
translations as Maigret's War of Nerves and A Battle of Nerves.
Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1903. Best known
in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of
over 400 novels and short stories have made him a household name in
continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where
he had lived for the latter part of his life.
SMITH, ALEXANDER scotland BERTIE’S GUIDE TO LIFE
AND MOTHERS (#9) ($21) Having anticipated his seventh birthday for so long, Bertie Pollock now longs to be eighteen, an age at
which he can avoid a "gender neutral" birthday and his overbearing,
eternally pushy mother, Irene. Down the street, Angus Lordie, painter
and sometime somnambulist, might just be sleepwalking into trouble
with the animal welfare inspectorate over his faithful hound Cyril's
drinking habit, while Matthew and Elspeth struggle to care for their
triplets, contending with Danish au pairs and dubious dukes to boot.
Seeming to have recovered from being dumped and his doppelganger
encounter, the hopelessly narcissistic Bruce might be facing his greatest challenge in the form of a "waxologist." As ever, when fate visits
44 Scotland Street, the real fun begins. Not even Bertie, with all his
life experience, could foretell that it would take the form of Sister
Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna and a literary festival in Dubai.
SMITH, KAREN ROSE de luca DEADLY DECOR (#2) ($8.99)
Quiet Kismet, Pennsylvania, may look like any other small town, but
as a home stager, Caprice De Luca can see behind closed doors and it
seems someone has designs on murder. Life is a full house for Caprice these days. She's dating, she's rescuing adorable cocker spaniels,
and she's decorating the roomy interiors of Kismet's most well-heeled
residents with fun fantasy themes. But she's worried about her pregnant sister. Bella's marriage is coming apart like a bad wallpaper job,
and to make matters worse, she's decided to meet up with a former
flame Bob Preston, a house painter Caprice frequently employs.
When he's found dead in a pool of green paint swirling with blood,
it's time for Caprice to stage an investigation. With all eyes trained on
Bella's husband, Caprice shifts her attention from finding the perfect
curtains to finding the perfect culprit. The first in the series is Staged
to Death ($8.99).
SOREN, JACK MONARCH ($14.99) When Jonathan Hall
walked away from his career as an international art thief to be a father, he thought he’d made a clean break from crime, from life as The
Monarch and from an early grave. But when The Monarch’s signature
symbol resurfaces, carved into the mutilated bodies of New York’s
elite, Jonathan realizes his retirement may have been short-lived.
Someone is framing The Monarch for horrific slayings. But Jonathan
and his former partner, Lew, know this isn’t just murder, it’s a message. Now caught in a deadly game against a fanatical madman
whose reach penetrates the darkest corners of the globe, Jonathan and
Lew have no choice but to play along. But when Jonathan’s daughter
SLEUTH of Baker Street and The Merchant of Menace, an unbeatable combination.
becomes a pawn, all bets are off. To win this game, Jonathan and Lew
will have to accept one final task as The Monarch, a job that could
change the course of history forever. A debut novel. 
STAUB, WENDY CORSI BLACK WIDOW ($9.99) In the
moonlight, shovelfuls of earth fall on a wooden crate at the bottom of
a deep pit. Soon the hole will be filled and covered over with leaves,
erasing all trace of the victim below, waking to the horror of being
buried alive. Newly divorced Gaby Duran isn't really expecting to
find her soul mate on a dating site like InTune. She just needs a distraction from pining over her ex-husband, Ben, and the happy marriage they once had. And she's wise enough to know that online, the
truth doesn't always match the profile. Almost everyone lies a little or
a lot. But Gaby quickly discovers there is much more at stake than her
lonely heart. Local singles are going missing after making online connections. And a predator is searching again for the perfect match. One
who will fulfill every twisted desire or die trying.
STEINHAUER, OLEN CAIRO AFFAIR ($18.50) Sophie Kohl is
living a nightmare. Minutes after she confesses to her husband, a midlevel American diplomat in Hungary, that she had an affair while they
were in Cairo, he is shot and killed. Stan Bertolli, a Cairo-based
CIA agent, has fielded his share of midnight calls. But his heart skips
a beat when, this time, he hears the voice of the only woman he ever
truly loved ask why her husband has been assassinated. Omar Halawi
has worked in Egyptian intelligence for years, and he knows how to
play the game. But the murder of a diplomat in Hungary has ripples
all the way to Cairo, and Omar must follow the fallout wherever it
leads. As these players converge on Cairo, the story unveils a portrait
of a marriage, a jigsaw puzzle of loyalty and betrayal, against
a dangerous world of political games where allegiances are never
clear and outcomes are never guaranteed. A stand alone novel.
STEWART, FRAN WEE MURDER IN MY SHOP (#1) ($9.99)
Hamelin, Vermont, isn’t the most likely place for bagpipes and tartan,
but at Peggy Winn’s ScotShop, business is booming. While on a
transatlantic hunt for some authentic wares to sell at her shop, Peggy
is looking to forget her troubles by digging through the hidden treasures of the Scottish Highlands. With so many enchanting items on
sale, Peggy can’t resist buying a beautiful old tartan shawl. But once
she wraps it around her shoulders, she discovers that her purchase
comes with a hidden fee: the spectre of a fourteenth-century Scotsman. Unsure if her Highland fling was real or a product of an overactive imagination, Peggy returns home to Vermont, only to find the
dead body of her ex-boyfriend on the floor of her shop. When the police chief arrests Peggy’s cousin based on some incriminating evidence, Peggy decides to ask her haunting Scottish companion to help
figure out who really committed the crime.
STRALEY, JOHN COLD STORAGE ALASKA ($15.95) Cold
Storage, Alaska, is a remote fishing outpost where salmonberries
sparkle in the morning frost and where you just might catch a King
Salmon if you’re zen enough to wait for it. Settled in 1935 by Norse
fishermen who liked to skinny dip in its natural hot springs, the town
enjoyed prosperity at the height of the frozen fish boom. But now the
cold storage plant is all but abandoned and the town is withering. Clive “The Milkman” McCahon returns to his tiny Alaska
hometown after a seven-year jail stint for dealing coke. He has a lot to
make up to his younger brother, Miles, who has dutifully been taking
care of their ailing mother. But Clive doesn’t realize the trouble he’s
bringing home. His vengeful old business partner is hot on his heels, a
stick-in-the-mud State Trooper is dying to bust Clive for narcotics,
and, to complicate everything, Clive might be going insane as lately
he’s been hearing animals talking to him. Will his arrival in Cold
Storage be a breath of fresh air for the sleepy, depopulated town? Or
will Clive’s arrival turn the whole place upside down?
TURNER, LISA GONE DEAD TRAIN (#2) ($18.50) Burned by
his last case, Memphis detective Billy Able is at a crossroads. He
e-MOM March 2015 Page 18
doubts himself. He doubts his career. But he can't turn off instincts
honed by a decade on the force. The suspicious deaths of two legendary bluesmen are ruled due to natural causes. Convinced that a crime
has been committed, Billy Able and straitlaced female cop Frankie
Malone refuse to let it go. A voodoo curse, a Santerían priest, and a
decades-old photograph may connect the seemingly unrelated homicides. But the clues don't add up until a third victim is cruelly murdered. Guilt-ridden, Billy swears to dig into the city's dark history for
answers, then finds himself caught up in a web of incriminating evidence. Hunter becomes prey. Frankie has his back as they race to
solve the deadly puzzle from which Billy may not come out alive.
The first in the series is A Little Death in Dixie ($23).
WAIT, LEA needlepoint TWISTED THREADS (#1) ($8.99) After leaving a decade ago, Angie has been called back to Harbor Haven
by her grandmother, Charlotte, who raised her following her mother’s
disappearance when she was a child. Her mother has been found, and
now the question of her whereabouts has sadly become the mystery of
her murder. The bright spot in Angie’s homecoming is reuniting with
Charlotte, who has started her own needlepointing business with a
group called Mainely Needlepointers. But when a shady business associate of the stitchers dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances,
Charlotte and Angie become suspects. As Angie starts to weave together clues, she discovers that this new murder may have ties to her
own mother’s cold case.
WILKINSON, KERRY jessica SCARRED FOR LIFE (#9)
($16.99) DI Jessica Daniel is not having a good week. Her wallet's
been nicked, the refurbished incident room is already falling apart,
and a new football-mad constable is driving her crazy. She also has
bigger things on her mind. A student's body has been dumped in a
wheelie bin at the back of a university building, with a vague link to
an Olympic medallist and a theory that it could have been an induction which went wrong. There's the tattooed shop raider who has her
team stumped; someone attacking lone women; a chief inspector who
seems to have a problem with her; and someone putting letters
through her front door insisting that she’s caught the wrong man.
WILLIAMS, TIMOTHY trotti BIG ITALY (#5) ($14.95) Northern Italy, 1993: After what seems like several lifetimes as a policeman in the Questura, Commissario Trotti is ready for retirement.
Soon, he’ll be able to fulfill his dream of moving to the countryside
villa he co-owns with his cousin, where his daily business will be
tending to goats and chickens. But despite Trotti’s stubbornly oldfashioned investigative methods and his disregard for social niceties,
there are several people trying to talk him out of retirement. Trotti’s
boss offers him a golden opportunity as head of the Questura’s new
child abuse division. Meanwhile, Fabrizio Bassi, a reckless, womanizing private detective who worked under Trotti years ago before being kicked off the force, approaches him for help. Bassi has been investigating the death of a murdered doctor, and he has a conspiracy
theory that extends to the highest reaches of government. Trotti declines, annoyed by the request. But when Bassi is found in a ditch
with a bullet in his head, Trotti decides to take on one last murder
case after all.
ZANDER, JOAKIM SWIMMER ($22.99) Klara Walldeen was
raised by her grandparents on a remote archipelago in the Baltic Sea,
learning to fish and hunt and sail a boat through a storm. Now, as an
EU Parliament aide in Brussels, she is learning how to navigate the
treacherous currents of international politics: the lines between friend
and enemy, truth and lies. But Klara has accidentally seen something
she shouldn't have: a laptop containing information so sensitive that
someone will kill to keep hidden. Suddenly, she is thrown into a terrifying chase across Europe, with no idea who is hunting her or why.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, an old spy hides from his past. Once, he was
a man of action, an operative so dedicated that he abandoned his infant daughter to keep his cover. Now, only he can save her.