Michael McGarrity

“Death Song”

In separate incidents a police officer and his wife are murdered and his adult son is missing. Kevin Kearney's son, Clayton, is assigned to find out what happened. When Kearney joins the investigation he and Clayton begin to know each other a little better and start to become friends.

Michael McGarrity

Clayton is Kearney's son by a previous relationship. The two never had much of a chance to be father and son but the process is beginning while Kearney's wife Sarah works on her recovery from her stint in the Middle East where she was injured saving the lives of others.

Learn more about McGarrity here. 

Jonathan Lethem

"The Feral Detective" 

The review was 

taken from one

on Goodreads.

I don't totally

agree. 

Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer in the desert outside of Los Angeles. She's on a quest to find her friend's missing daughter, Arabella, and hears that Heist is preternaturally good at finding people who don't want to be found.  A loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist has a laconic, enigmatic nature that intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. It takes some convincing, but he agrees to help.

The unlikely pair traverse California's stunning Inland Empire, navigating the enclaves of hippies and vagabonds who aim to live off the grid. They learn that these outcasts exist in warring tribes--the Rabbits and the Bears--and that Arabella is likely caught in the middle. As Phoebe tries to delicately extricate her, she realizes that Heist has a complicated history with these strange groups and that they're all in grave danger.

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn delivers the same memorable delights: ecstatic wordplay, warm and deeply felt characters, and an offbeat sense of humor. 

Combined with a vision of California that is at once scruffy and magnificent, The Feral Detective emerges as a transporting, comic, and absolutely unforgettable novel.  Read more here about Lethem

Ted Dekker

“Eyes Wide Open”

WHO AM I? MY NAME IS CHRISTY SNOW. I'M SEVENTEEN AND I'M ABOUT TO DIE.

I'm buried in a coffin under tons of concrete. No one knows where I am. My heart sounds like a monster with clobber feet, running straight toward me. I'm lying on my back, soaked with sweat from the hair on my head to the soles of my feet. My hands and feet won't stop shaking.

Some will say that I m not really here. Some will say I'm delusional. Some will say that I don t even exist. But who are they? I'm the one buried in a grave. 

My name is Christy Snow. I'm seventeen. I'm about to die.  So who are you? 

In a return to the kind of storytelling that made Black, Showdown and Three unforgettable, Ted Dekker drags that question into the light with this modern day parable about how we see ourselves. 

Ted Dekker

Humming with intensity and blindsided twists, Eyes Wide Open is raw adrenaline from the first page to the last pure escapism packed with inescapable truth. Not all is as it seems. Or is it? Strap yourself in for the ride of your life. Literally.

Read about Dekker here. 

Stella Cameron

“Out Comes the Evil”

Second in the traditional British mystery series featuring rural inn owner and amateur sleuth Alex Duggins: a departure for Stella Cameron.

Once again Alex Duggins and her veterinarian friend Tony Harrison are thrown into a major murder investigation. An almost fresh body is discovered in a disused well among the ruins of a 14th-century manor house ... the motive for the killing a baffling mystery. 

Stella Cameron

The victim was a widow who had lived quietly in the picturesque Cotswolds village of Folly-on-Weir for the past ten years. Who on earth could want her dead, and by such brutal means?

As rumour and speculation engulf the town, another woman is attacked – and Alex discovers that behind a tranquil face lurks a cunning and vengeful mind. Despite warnings from the police to stop interfering, she finds herself in the sights of a ruthless killer who has decided she knows too much . Read here about Cameron. 

Jeanne Dams

"The Evil That Men Do"

I enjoy this
author. 

Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, are on holiday in the idyllic English village of Broadway when they stumble across the body of a man who appears to have fallen down a disused quarry.

When it is revealed that the man, a local farmer, was probably pushed over the edge, and that the police have failed to find any suspects or motives for the murder, Dorothy can't help but get involved.

A strange encounter with a fellow holidaymaker just before they discovered the corpse arouses her suspicion, and she and Alan set out to solve the case, but not without great risk to the safety of Dorothy herself. 

Jeanne Dams

“The Victim in the Train Station” 

Dorothy Martin's wedded bliss could only be improved if her husband didn't have to go gallivanting all over the world, advising local police on new procedure. 

Dorothy's life could only be improved if she didn't keep stumbling across the recently-and criminally-deceased. Read about Dams here. 




“Murder at the Castle” 

 Dorothy Martin is in Wales for an opera full of passion, drama . . . and murder.

Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, are invited to join their close friends Nigel and Inga Evans at a Welsh music festival. 

Amid the glorious surroundings of Welsh castles and the history of long-ago battles, the stage is set for an enjoyable event. 

However, when a tragic accident takes the life of one of the choir, and the same fate befalls the star soloist, Dorothy and Alan find themselves in the midst of an investigation as tumultuous, passionate and complicated as any opera.

"A Dark and Stormy Night"

When Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, are invited to a country house weekend, they expect nothing more explosive than the Guy Fawkes fireworks. 

Having read every Agatha Christie ever written, Dorothy should have known better. 

Rendered isolated and incommunicado by the storm, Dorothy and Alan nevertheless manage to work out what in the world has been happening at ancient Branston Abbey.

"Smile and Be a Villain" 

  A holiday on the picturesque island of Alderney leads to a case of cold-blooded murder for American Anglophile Dorothy Martin.

When Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired police detective Alan Nesbitt, decide to visit the beautiful island of Alderney in the English Channel, they hope for a pleasant, peaceful holiday. 

It s not to be. Taking a walk on their very first day, they discover a body, apparently the victim of an unfortunate accident, on a precipitous hill path.

The dead man, they learn, is an American named Abercrombie who had made himself both loved and hated during his few weeks on the island. Although there is no concrete evidence of foul play, both Dorothy and Alan are uneasy about the death and decide to delve further.

And then they unearth some most disquieting revelations . . ."

"The Corpse of St. James

Still another book with Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt.

They have just visited Buckingham Palace, where Alan was awarded the George Cross, when they and a friend, retired Chief Inspector Jonathan Quinn, stumble across the body of a young girl hidden in St James's Park. 

Wondering what led to the unfortunate girl's demise, Dorothy can't help but get involved in the case when Jonathan calls the next day and admits he knew who the victim was.

Michael Ondaatje

"Warlight"

In a narrative as mysterious as memory itself – at once both shadowed and luminous – Warlight is a vivid, thrilling novel of violence and love, intrigue and desire. 

It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz and years of war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. 

They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women with a shared history, all of whom seem determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. 

But are they really what and who they claim to be? 

Michael-Ondaatje

A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all he didn’t know or understand in that time, and it is this journey – through reality, recollection, and imagination – that is told in this magnificent novel.  Read more about Ondaatje here.

Joanne Fluke

"Christmas Cake Murder"

It’s Christmas many years ago, and topping young Hannah Swensen’s wish list is becoming the go-to baker in Lake Eden, Minnesota. But as Hannah finds out, revisiting holiday memories can be murder . . .

With her dream of opening The Cookie Jar taking shape, Hannah’s life matches the hectic December hustle and bustle in Lake Eden—especially when she agrees to help recreate a spectacular Christmas Ball from the past in honor of Essie Granger, an elderly local in hospice care. 

But instead of poring over decadent dessert recipes for the merry festivities, she instantly becomes enthralled by Essie’s old notebooks and the tale of a woman escaping danger on the streets of New York. Hannah’s surprised by Essie’s secret talent for penning crime fiction. 

Joanne Fluke

She’s even more surprised when the story turns real. As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother’s house, it’ll be a true miracle if she can prevent another Yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake . Read about Fluke here. 

Bill Crider

“A Bond With Death”

Sally's husband has been dead for eight years; his remote ancestor, the witch Sarah Good, died on the scaffold in Salem more than four hundred years ago. Yet the president of Sally's college is afraid the story will reflect on the institution.

Sally is annoyed. Sarah Good wasn't her ancestor; she was the forbear of Sally's dead husband. That the president of a college should be concerned that one of his faculty might be thought the descendant of a woman who was hanged as a witch four hundred years ago seems ludicrous to her.

In one way, the president has reason to be concerned. Their town is in a very conservative part of Texas---a considerable number of citizens are trying to get the Harry Potter books removed from the library. Now a bond issue for the college is coming up, and nothing is more important to the president than to get it approved.

Bill Crider

Returning to her office, Sally learns from her boyfriend that "the Garden Gnome" has been murdered. The Garden Gnome (so-called because he looks like one) was consistently honored by the students, who gave him the worst evaluations any faculty member had ever received, and Sally was eventually effective in securing his departure. 

Nor does it help her that he was one of the staunchest opponents of the bond issue. With the aid of the Internet, most of the local population have convinced themselves that Mrs. Sally Good and "Witch" Sarah Good are practically one and the same---maybe Sally is a reincarnation of "her" ancestor. And you know what witches can do.

With the help of her lover, Jack, and some complications thrown up by a covey of wiccans ("No, no, it's a religion. We are not witches"), Sally may avoid being hanged, but it certainly looks like she is in real trouble. Read about Crider here.

"Compound Murder"

Managed to

finish but not

much to like.

Small-town Texas sheriff Dan Rhodes is in for another puzzling mystery in this next in the entertaining, award-winning series

Before classes start one morning, the body of English instructor Earl Wellington is found outside the building of the community college. Wellington was clearly involved in a struggle with someone and has died as a result. 

Sheriff Dan Rhodes pursues and arrests Ike Terrell, a student who was fleeing the campus. Ike's father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a gated compound.

He’s not happy that his son has chosen to attend the college, and he's even less happy with the arrest.


Rhodes discovers that Wellington and Ike had had a confrontation over a paper that Wellington insisted Ike plagiarized. Wellington also had had a confrontation with the dean and was generally disliked by the students. 

As the number of suspects increases, it’s up to Rhodes to solve the murder while also dealing with an amusing but frustrating staff, a professor who wants to be a cop, and all the other normal occurrences that can wreak havoc in a small town.

Archer Mayor

"Proof Positive" 

Ben Kendall was a troubled man. Coming back from Vietnam with PTSD and scars that no one else could see, he hid away from the world, filling his house with an ever-increasing amount of stuff, until finally, the piles collapsed and he was found dead, crushed beneath his own belongings. 

But what at first glance looks to be a tragic accidental death of a hoarder, may be something much more—and much deadlier. Ben's cousin, medical examiner Beverly Hillstrom, unsettled by the circumstances of his death, alerts Joe Gunther and his Vermont Bureau of Investigation team.


Ben, it seems, brought back something else from Vietnam than personal demons—he also brought back combat photos and negatives that someone else wants desperately to keep from the public eye. When Beverly's daughter Rachel made her cousin Ben—and his photos—the subject of her college art project, some of those photos appeared on the walls of a local art gallery. 

This in turn resulted in the appearance of a two man hit squad, searching for some other missing negatives. With Joe Gunther and his squad trailing behind the grisly research results of the hit team, and the deadly killers closing in on Rachel, Gunther has little time to find and protect Rachel before she ends up in the same grisly state as her cousin before her. Archer Mayor's Proof Positive is another enthralling installment in the Joe Gunther Series.

"The Catch"

Joe Gunther gets the call that every law enforcement person hates and every friend and family member of a policeman fears -a cop has been murdered in the line of duty. 

Deputy Sheriff Brian Sleuter has been shot to death during a routine traffic stop on a dark country road. 

From what can been seen on the cruiser s tape recorder of the killers, it is believed that they are a couple of Boston-based drug runners who were stopped by the deputy on their way from Canada down to Boston. 

Archer Mayor

That brings Gunther and his major crimes team into the investigation -- and eventually to Alan Budney, the disaffected son of a Maine lobsterman, now a drug kingpin, who uses the closed, clannish lobster fishing community, and his extended family in particular, to move drugs along the New England coast."
Read more about Mayor here. 

"Paradise City"


Joe Gunther and his team at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation are alerted to a string of unrelated burglaries across Vermont. Someone, in addition to flatscreens, computers, and stereos, has also been stealing antiques and jewelry.

Meanwhile, in Boston, an elderly woman surprises some thieves in her Beacon Hill home and is viciously murdered. The Boston police find that not only is the loot similar to what's being stolen in Vermont, but it may have the same destination. Word is out that someone powerful is purchasing these particular kinds of items in the "Paradise City" of Northampton, Mass.


Gunther, the Boston Police, and the vengeful granddaughter of the murdered old lady convene on Northampton, eager to get to the bottom of the mystery and find the "responsible parties"—although each is motivated to mete out some very different penalties.

H.R.F. Keating

“One Man and His Bomb”

A phone call brings terrorism shockingly close to Supt. Harriet Martens and her husband, John Piddock. One of their police-officer sons, Graham, has been killed by a London booby trap, and his twin, Malcolm, is hospitalized in a coma. Any other officer would be prostrate, but the Hard Detective, traumatized and grief-stricken, is back on the job at the Assistant Commissioner’s urging the following day, conducting a discreet one-woman investigation into the theft of CA 534, a souped-up herbicide that’s vanished from the office of Dr. Giles Lennox, Director of Heronsgate House Institute, before it can be destroyed. 

How potent is CA 534? If two drops of the oily stuff could defoliate a garden plot, Harriet can only imagine what a full test-tube could do. So as she’s struggling to cope with Graham’s death and Malcolm’s grave injuries, she’s asking how likely it is that Christopher Alexander, the Director’s assistant, leaked news of the secret project to either of the leading suspects, Christopher’s old academic mentor Prof. Ernst Wichmann, or the dotty but determined Women Against Genetic Interference.

The mystery is solved by a series of convenient, and conveniently delayed, recollections. It’s a testament to this series that the death of the heroine’s son produces a reaction that’s stronger but no more heartfelt than usual.  Read more about Keating here. 

S.J. Rozan

“Stone Quarry”

Bill Smith's country cabin in upstate New York is far from the city's savage streets--a retreat where a weary P.I. can play Mozart on his upright piano and let nature heal him. 

But when Eve Colgate, a local farmer and painter, asks him to find stolen items--six paintings which could reveal Eve's highly guarded thirty-year-old secret--he caves. When Smith's partner, Lydia Chin, comes in on the action, she brings along her cool courage and sharp mind. 

It's a simple case--until the runaway daughter of a hotshot politician and the murder of a local hood change the playing field. Now the stench of corruption fills this rural paradise, as Bill and Lydia scour through dangerous secrets and greedy corridors for the stone-cold truth.

Read about S.J. Rozan here. 

Michael Harvey

“The Governor’s Wife”

It's been two years since disgraced Illinois governor Ray Perry disappeared from a federal courthouse in Chicago moments after being sentenced to 38 years in prison on corruption charges. 

PI Michael Kelly is sitting in his office when he gets an anonymous email offering to pay him nearly a quarter million dollars if he will find Perry, no questions asked. 

Kelly's investigation begins with the woman Ray Perry left behind - his wife, Marie. Ostracized by her former friends and hounded by the feds, Marie tells Kelly she has no idea where her husband is. Like everyone else, Kelly doesn't believe her. 

As he hunts for her husband, Kelly begins to unwind Marie Perry's past. What he finds is a woman who turns out to be even more intriguing than her husband, with her own deeply complicated reasons for standing by him. 

Everyone in Chicago has secrets, including the governor's wife. Some of them she shared with her husband. Some of them she kept to herself. And some of them could get Michael Kelly killed.

Read more here about Harvey. 

“The Chicago Way”

Chicago P.I. Michael Kelly is hired by his former partner to help solve an eight-year-old rape-and-battery case, a case it turns out his old friend was once ordered to forget. 

When his friend turns up dead, Kelly turns to some of his savviest colleagues for help: a television reporter whose relationship with Kelly is not strictly professional; his best friend from childhood, a forensic DNA expert; and an old ally from the DA's office. 

To close the files, Kelly will have to face the mob, a serial killer, his own double-crossing friends and the mean streets of the city he loves.

JoAnna Carl

“The Chocolate Snowman Murders”

The much anticipated Winter Arts festival is here, and as treasurer of Winterfest, Lee is up to her elbows in mix-ups behind the scenes. 

When the art show's guest juror shows up drunk, Lee lets him sleep it off, only to find out later that someone's put the visiting dignitary into a permanent state of repose. Lee and Joe were the last people spotted near the crime scene. 

In a seriously sticky situation, it's up to them to find the real killer before someone else comes to a bitter end...

"Chocolate Moose Motive"

In Carl's satisfying 12th cozy featuring Lee McKinney Woodyard (after 2011's The Chocolate Castle Clue), the chocolate shop proprietor stirs up bad blood in Warner Pier, Mich., by taking on a controversial new employee, Forsythia "Sissy" Smith.  

Townsfolk disapprove of Sissy's unconventional upbringing by her hippie grandmother and suspect she may be responsible for her husband Buzz's murder. 

Lee, however, sympathizes with the young woman—who's vying against her former father-in-law for custody of her son, Johnny—and hires Sissy to work at her shop, TenHuis Chocolade. 


After a second murder casts further suspicion on Sissy, Lee becomes even more involved in helping her friend, enlisting the help of such lively characters as her lawyer husband, Joe, and her Aunt Nettie to find the real killer.

Read more here about JoAnna Carl

Kyle Mills

“Order to Kill”

Mitch Rapp is used to winning.  But now the CIA operative finds himself chasing false leads in an effort to keep Pakistani nukes from falling into the hands of terrorists.

When it becomes clear that forces in Moscow are bent on inciting chaos in the Middle East, Rapp must go deep into enemy controlled Iraqi territory, posing as an ISIS recruit.  There he uncovers a plan much more dangerous than he ever could have imagined—one that, if not thwarted, will have catastrophic global consequences.

Read more about Mills here.

Linda O. Johnston

“Double Dog Dare”

As a lawyer and pet-sitter in L.A., Kendra Ballantyne, Esq., has met more than her share of difficult pets... and people.  But when some arrogant cloners cross her path, she meets a whole new breed--one whose perilous business is playing God...p>

It’s been a rough month for Kendra.  Her boyfriend and sidekick, Jeff Hubbard, P.I., has gone missing--right after they decided to move in together.  It sounds like a case of cold feet until they find his car submerged in a canal.  

Kendra's panicked inquiries lead her to Jeff's Aunt Lois, an ex-pole dancer and full-time eccentric who had taken her dog Flisa, a sweet-natured Akita mix, to a company that promised to clone the pup.  But poor Flisa never made it out alive...  And then one of the cloners is murdered.


As Kendra picks up the scent of Jeff’s investigation, she wonders:  Was Jeff kidnapped?  If not, why hasn’t he contacted her?   Is he protecting his revenge-driven aunt?   Or worse...could he be the killer?  Kendra is hounded by questions, and for the first time, she's not sure she wants the answers...

“Sit, Stay, Slay”

Kendra is a high-powered civil litigator.  Or at least she was, till she got into some trouble and her license to practice law was suspended.   

Needing a way to earn enough money for Lexie and her to live on, she has taken up petsitting and eventually, when her license is reinstated, she begins to practice pet law.

But before she can resume her lawyering, some of her petsitting clients begin to turn up dead--in the first Kendra Ballantyne mystery:  Sit, Stay, Slay.

"Meow is for Murder"

Another purr-fect Pet Sitting mystery. 


The last thing pet-sitter Kendra Ballantyne wants is to start a catfight with her boyfriend's ex-wife, Amanda. 

So she agrees to help when Amanda's stalker turns up dead in her home-but only if Amanda will take her claws out of her ex for good.

And Kendra begins to wonder whether losing her law license is the least of her worries.

Read more about Johnston here. 

Stephen White

“Kill Me”

A new author
for me. I hope
to find more. 

Crime-prone Boulder psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory doesn’t have to do anything but listen to one of his most troubled patients: a man sentenced to death by killers he hired himself.

After getting rescued from a skiing mishap that could have been much worse and hearing the news that a friend has been turned into a vegetable by a scuba accident, the anonymous narrator, a wealthy med-tech developer, realizes he’s never worried what will happen if illness or accident leave him incapacitated, unable to communicate his wish to die if he can’t Live-with-a-capital-L, or make sure that wish is honored. 

A sympathetic friend puts him in touch with a shadowy group he dubs the Death Angels who offer a unique service. For a cool million, they’ll ask you enough questions to construct an individualized profile of your likely future wishes, then monitor your health, keep an eye out for accidents and step in without further notice if you cross the quality-of-life line you’ve drawn yourself. 

The big advantage to this arrangement, of course, is that you get to make decisions about the end of your life while you’re still in the pink of health. The big disadvantage is that once you’ve made the final payment, your contract with the Death Angels is irrevocable—even if you soon develop an aneurysm that produces symptoms so serious you know the Death Angels are watching, even if in the meantime you’ve developed an emotional bond to a son you never knew you had that’s so vital it’s absolutely essential you stay alive at least long enough to find the missing boy and bid him farewell.

White, no stranger to suspenseful but wildly implausible plots (Missing Persons, 2005, etc.), wisely front-loads this thriller with a flatly incredible premise that pays off down the road despite a cargo of further improbabilities.

"Manner of Death" 

Very involved but
interesting and
worth a read. 

The past resurfaces in ways that are as intimate as they are frightening when Dr. Alan Gregory and Dr. Sawyer Sackett-a woman he once loved-are plunged into the private nightmare of a killer who knows about the terrifying power of mind games.

Following a former colleague's funeral, two strangers approach Gregory and suggest that the death he just mourned did not occur from natural causes and is neither the first nor the last of a terrible chain in which Gregory is the crucial link. 

Delving into his past and examining the deaths of associates from his post-medical school days almost two decades before, Gregory quickly discovers that all have been victims of bizarre, fatal accidents except him and his old flame, Sawyer Sackett. 

Reuniting with Sawyer to investigate the string of possible murders, Alan finds not only his life, but his marriage endangered. Soon he is moving into the sights of a dangerously disturbed killer-- and deeper into an unsolved mystery buried in the annals of modern American crime.

“Critical Conditons” 

Summoned to the hospital to learn the motives behind a teenage girl's suicide attempt, Alan discovers that the girl's young stepsister lies near death in another hospital with a heart disease. 

Denied an experimental new treatment that could save her life by her parent's managed-care provider, the stepsister has become a symbol of a health care system more concerned with costs than with the lives of its patients. 


And when a wealthy executive of the family's HMO is found dead, Alan and Denver detective Sam Purdy uncover the truth that links the teenage girl to his death, and the truth behind a family willing to kill in the name of love...and revenge.