Here's the link to the Murder by the Book reading list
Death Takes a Holiday: Beach Reads and More

I like Mystery Beach Reads that actually take place at the beach, like Douglas Corleone's new series with Kevin Corvelli, a Manhattan criminal defense lawyer who moves to Honolulu, Hawaii

One Man's Paradise # 1
Summary: After his reputation is destroyed by a botched murder case, cutthroat defense lawyer Kevin Corvelli flees to Hawaii, where he meets a law student who has been wrongly accused of killing his ex-girlfriend.
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Night on Fire # 2
Summary: Kevin Corvelli--a hot shot New York defense attorney who packed up his bags and hung his shingle in Hawaii to dodge the spotlight--is deep in his Mai Tais at a resort when an argument erupts down the bar. It's a pair of newlyweds, married that day. And since Corvelli doesn't do divorces, he all but dismisses the argument. That's at least until the fire breaks out later that night, and he barely escapes his hotel room. Most weren't so lucky, including the new husband. His wife Erin becomes not only the prime suspect but Corvelli's newest client, and she has a lot working against her, like motive and opportunity, not to mention a history of starting fires. (publisher's description)

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I came across the following web page while browsing for Beach Reads:
Top Books to Read at the Beach
Check out their Mystery Recommendations

series description from Stop, You're Killing Me!

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

Erasing Memory
by Scott Thornley

Book # 1 with senior police detective MacNeice, in the fictional Ontario city of Dundurn

Summary: MacNeice is returning from a pilgrimage to his wife's grave when he's called to a crime scene of singular and disturbing beauty. A young woman in evening dress lies gracefully posed on the floor of a pristine summer cottage so that the finger of one hand regularly interrupts the needle arm of a phonograph playing the Schubert Piano Trio. The only visible mark on her is the bruise under her chin, which MacNeice recognizes: it is the mark that distinguishes dedicated violinists, the same mark that once graced his wife. The murder is both ingenious and horrific, and soon entangles MacNeice and his team in Eastern Europe's ancient grievances . . . .
Fantastic Fiction

Put your name on the hold list for
The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

Book # 4 with Los Angeles lawyer Mickey Haller

Summary: Mickey Haller must defend a client who is accused of killing the banker involved with her foreclosure, a case that reveals strong suspicions, black-market dealings, and a threat to Mickey's own life.

First book: The Lincoln Lawyer

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While you're waiting, have a look through some of these new legal procedurals or thrillers.

Trader of secrets: a Paul Madriani novel
by Steve Martini
Book # 12 with defense attorney Paul Madriani

Summary: While in Paris to find a former NASA employee whose name has been found on papers left in his nemesis's apartment, Paul Madriani stumbles upon a plot to harness the destructive forces of nature using stolen technology that foreign powers will stop at nothing to get their hands on.

First book: Compelling Evidence

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Guilt by Association by Marcia Clarke

Summary: Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is grief-stricken over the murder of her colleague, Jake, as she takes over his toughest case, and finds her reputation--and her life--at stake as she digs deeper into Jake's death.

Author Marcia Clark was the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial.
Starred Reviews by Booklist, Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus

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Save Me by Lisa Scottoline

Non-series

Summary: Volunteering at her daughter's school so that she can keep an eye on a bully, Susan faces a difficult choice when her daughter is tormented at the same time an explosion occurs in the cafeteria, a situation that causes Susan to be blamed for the bully's injuries.

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Scottoline is also well-known for the series with
Rosato & Associates, an all-women law firm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (first book: Everywhere That Mary Went)

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Heaven is High by Kate Wilhelm

Book # 12 with Barbara Holloway, a defense attorney who works out of her home and a local restaurant in Oregon

Summary: Handling low-key cases after leaving her father's powerful legal firm, attorney Barbara Holloway is approached by a desperate pro football player and his mute illegal immigrant wife, the latter of whom is facing deportation and a death sentence.

First book: Death Qualified

posted by Sharon

C.J. Sansom: Heartstone (2010) *****

Historical, set in 1545 England

Book # 5 with hardworking lawyer Matthew Shardlake

Description: Asked by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr to investigate claims of wrongs committed against a young ward of the court, Matthew Shardlake embarks on the most politically dangerous case of his career against a backdrop of war between England and France. NoveList

MBTB review: I've liked every book in this series. Sansom has the knack of making the era come alive and makes even the most complex issues seem understandable - in this case, the wardship of orphans, and the war against France coming to a head in a naval battle near Portsmouth. This is where Matthew has traveled to settle a suspicious wardship issue - he isn't in the household long before there is a murder.
I also like the character of Matthew, who is coming to terms with his unmarried state, but is at heart a romantic.

The rest of the series:
Dissolution (2003)

Dark Fire (2004)

Sovereign (2006)

Revelation (2008)

## Related post: MBTB review of Sovereign # 3

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Here's what the Booklist review had to say:
/* Starred Review */ In 1545, times are perilous for London counsel Matthew Shardlake and for his country. While the English, heavily taxed and with their coinage debased by Henry VIII, prepare for a naval attack from the French at Portsmouth, Shardlake takes on a case at the request of Catherine Parr on behalf of her former servant, whose son committed suicide after discovering “monstrous wrongs” against a teenage ward he once tutored. As the 43-year-old, hunchbacked Shardlake seeks to uncover secrets in the ward’s household, he also investigates the past of a presumably sane woman kept for years in Bedlam. Even with the queen’s patronage, the dogged Shardlake is threatened bodily while pursuing answers to both cases, which ultimately pit him against his old court nemesis, Sir Richard Rich. The heft of this fifth in the Shardlake series may be intimidating, but Sansom’s supple and action-packed prose should keep readers engaged. The novel vividly captures the Tudor scene, from its corrupt politics to the stench of its streets and the horror of battle. Historical mystery at its finest.

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Dangerous to Know
by Tasha Alexander

Historical - this book is set in 1892 France

Book # 5 with amateur investigator Lady Emily Hargreaves, newly married to second husband, Colin.

Description: Recovering at her mother-in-law's estate in Normandy after a brush with death, Lady Emily Hargreaves discovers a murder victim whose death looks like the act of Jack the Ripper, a killing that compels her to follow clues to the medieval city of Rouen in search of a lost child. NoveList

First book: And Only to Deceive

David Rosenfelt: New Tricks (2009)

Book # 7 with independently wealthy lawyer Andy Carpenter.

MBTB review: Lawyer Andy Carpenter is asked to determine who should have custody of a dog after the owner was murdered. Then a house blows up just after Andy picks up the dog, the explosion killing the owner’s wife.

This series usually features dogs in some way. I hesitate to call the series "legal procedural" because the books are more "investigator, action/adventure" type. Fast-paced, light entertainment.

First book: Open and Shut (2002)

This is a mini-review from Mystery Memo # 104

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Here's what the Library Journal review had to say:
/* Starred Review */ Cohabitating with his golden retriever, Tara, and yearning for his love, Laurie, a Wisconsin sheriff, Patterson, NJ, lawyer Andy Carpenter gets mixed up in a seventh canine crime (after Play Dead ). And what a case it turns out to be. Ordered by a judge to represent Waggy, a Bernese Mountain dog, in a custody battle, Andy becomes entangled in murder, DNA, adultery, spies, explosions, and much more. Andy must figure out who is behind the killings, who is innocent, and why everyone wants Waggy.
VERDICT: Rosenfelt's newest entry in his Andy Carpenter series is a winner. In the same vein as Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar or Robert Crais's Elvis Cole, Rosenfelt's Andy has some great one-liners that complete his rich-lawyer, dog-loving persona. This hard-to-put-down read will please not just mystery fans (especially those who enjoy canine mysteries like Spencer Quinn's Dog On It) but others seeking the perfect summer escape.

posted by Sharon

Can’t Never Tell (2009)

Book # 5 with big city lawyer Avery Andrews now working back in her hometown in South Carolina.

Summary: The discovery of a real skeleton inside a carnival fright-house mannequin and the seemingly accidental death of a local faculty wife during a picnic send attorney Avery Andrews on a quest to unravel a very cold homicide case and a recent murder.

MBTB review: I enjoyed the story unfolding and all the small town characters. Try this series if you like Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott books (e.g. The Bootlegger’s Daughter).

First book with Avery Andrews:
Southern Fried (2004)

## Related post: MBTB review of Done Gone Wrong Book # 2

This is a mini-review from Mystery Memo # 103

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What Booklist had to say:
Feisty attorney Avery Andrews seems to be settling back into Dacus, her South Carolina hometown. About a year ago she was a high-powered malpractice attorney in Columbia, South Carolina. Now, at the beginning of July, she is still learning how to be a small-town general-practice lawyer. Fortunately, there are a couple of puzzles at hand to which she can apply her lawyerly mind. First, her precocious seven-year-old niece discovers that a mannequin in a carnival fright house is a real skeleton. Who was it, how old is it, and where did it come from? The next day Avery attends a picnic with her sister’s family and other college faculty members. A faculty wife falls off a waterfall. Was she pushed, and if so, who was responsible? Pickens won the Malice Domestic Contest for Best Traditional Mystery (for Southern Fried, 2004), and this fifth in the series solidifies her as an assured voice in the cozy subgenre. Unlike other cozy authors, Pickens never resorts to caricatures of either southerners or lawyers.

posted by Sharon

Mystery author William Tapply died July 28, 2009 at his home, of leukemia.

Read his obituary in The Boston Globe and Boston Herald

In mystery circles, he is known for his popular long-running series with Brady Coyne, a sports fisherman and lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts:

Death at Charity’s Point (1984)

The Dutch Blue Error (1984)

Follow the Sharks (1985)

The Marine Corpse (1986)
APA: A Rodent of Doubt (1987)

Dead Meat (1987)

The Vulgar Boatman (1987)

A Void in Hearts (1988)

Dead Winter (1989)

Client Privilege (1990)

The Spotted Cats (1991)

Tight Lines (1992)

The Snake Eater (1993)

The Seventh Enemy (1995)

Close to the Bone (1996)

Cutter’s Run (1998)

Muscle Memory (1999)

Scar Tissue (2000)

Past Tense (2001)

First Light (2001) (written with Philip R. Craig: Brady teams up with Craig's character ex-cop J.W.Jackson)

A Fine Line (2002)

Shadow of Death (2004)

Second Sight (2005) (written with Philip R. Craig: Brady teams up with Craig's character J.W.Jackson)

Nervous Water (2005)

Out Cold (2006)
MBTB review of Out Cold (2006)

One-Way Ticket (2007)
MBTB review of One-Way Ticket

Third Strike (2007) (written with Philip R. Craig: Brady teams up with Craig's character J.W.Jackson)
MBTB review of Third Strike

Hell Bent (2008)

Watch for the last Brady Coyne novel Outwitting Trolls.

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Tapply also wrote a relatively new series featuring Stoney Calhoun, who can't remember his past, working at a bait and tackle shop in rural Maine:

Bitch Creek (2004) # 1
MBTB review of Bitch Creek

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Gray Ghost (2007) # 2
MBTB review Gray Ghost

Dark Tiger # 3

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some series description from Stop, You're Killing Me!

posted by Sharon

Despite the anemic star rating, I liked Barrington Street Blues a lot --- likeable, well-drawn characters, entertaining plot, good writing. I bet you'd like it too --- unless you really want to read a murder mystery. Unfortunately, the murder and its consequent mystery is a very minor subplot in the book (every once in a while, I would think "Saaayyy, what's happening with that murder investigation anyhow?" and then forget about it again for another 30 pages..).

The main characters are a Halifax lawyer and blues musician named Monty Collins, and his best friend, a Catholic priest named Brennan Burke. After a "recovering" drug addict shoots himself in a tavern parking lot after killing another man, the addict's family approaches Monty's law firm, intending to file a lawsuit against the drug treatment facility that had released the man the same day the crime took place. Monty is assigned the case but before he files the suit, he wants to check out a few odd details about the crime and make absolutely sure that the man was really the perpetrator, and not the victim.

That's the mystery aspect. The majority of the story revolves around with Monty's relationships with Father Burke, his bandmates and his family. His workaholic-lawyer lifestyle has caused a separation from his wife (with whom he shares custody of their son and daughter), but Monty is still very much in love with his wife and is working on his latest plot for reconcilation when his nine-year-old daughter blurts out the news that her mother is pregnant, obviously by another man. Monty's whole world (not to mention the almost non-existent crime investigation) comes to a screeching halt as he, Brennan and his other friends all attempt to deal with the situation and Monty's reaction in their various ways.

Personally, I liked the characters of Monty and Brennan enough that I'm going to try the first two books in the series:
Sign of the Cross (2006)
Obit (2007)
before I conclude that Emery doesn't really want to write mysteries...

posted by Pat

Nightshade is the 16th title in Albert's series about Texas lawyer-herbalist China Bayles; it's also the last book in a trilogy (within the series) revolving around China's discovery that her cold, distant father had a secret second family, and that her newly-discovered half-brother believes their father's death in a car accident 15 years earlier may have been murder.

The viewpoint in this book alternates chapters between China herself and her husband, Mike McQuaid, who is a private detective hired by China's half-brother Miles to help him investigate their father's death. Sometimes that arrangement tends to chop the action up and make the plot hard to follow, but Albert keeps things flowing smoothly; there's also lots of suspense and action (much less "cozy" than I was expecting!). The characters, both major and minor, are well-developed, likeable people, and there's enough back-story provided that I could follow the plot easily, even without having read the first two books of the trilogy.

Albert does use one device that I always find really irritating: several times either China or McQuaid discovers a Very Important Clue, and Albert uses up a page or two telling us how very shocking this clue is and how it changes the whole course of the investigation, but she doesn't tell us what the clue is for a chapter of two afterwards... To me, this is a cheap trick: if you've got a good story (which this one is), why rely on this sort of phoney hype to string out the suspense?

The China Bayles series begins with
Thyme of Death (1992)

The two earlier books in the trilogy are
Bleeding Hearts(2006)
Spanish Dagger(2007)

Pat

Brady Coyne, Boston lawyer

One-Way Ticket is Book #23 in the series

After his father has been beaten up, a young man tells Brady, the family lawyer, that he has gambling debts that he is afraid to tell his family about. Then the young man disappears. I hesitate to say more without giving away the story.

This is a wonderful long series that I have read from the first book Death at Charity's Point (1984).

I can depend on Tapply for good characterization and nice writing.

Related posts:
Review of Out Cold (2006) Brady Coyne series Book #22

Review of Third Strike (2006) by William Tapply and Philip R. Craig, series with characters Brady Coyne and J.W. Jackson working together, Book #3

Review of Bitch Creek (2004) Stoney Calhoun series, Book #1

Review of Gray Ghost (2007) Stoney Calhoun series, Book #2

The author's website William Tapply online

posted by Sharon

Third Strike (2007)

Third in the series that combines Philip Craig's character J. W. Jackson (Martha's Vineyard ex-cop) and William Tapply's character Brady Coyne (Boston lawyer)

Previous books in this series of combined characters:
First Light (2001)

Second Sight (2005)

In this book, as in the two previous books in this combined series, alternate chapters are narrated by each character, so we see the story from J.W. Jackson's point-of-view and then from Brady Coyne's point-of-view. Although the characters are quite different, and they are written by different authors, I occasionally forgot who was narrating the chapter that I was in the midst of. This is a minor quibble.

Lawyer Brady Coyne gets a secretive phone call from a client who now lives in virtual seclusion on Martha's Vineyard. The client insists that Brady come to see him on the island, despite a ferry strike. In the meantime, J.W. Jackson is urged by his wife to look into the death of a local man, supposedly killed by an explosion he was setting in connection with the strike. People who knew the man are sure he never would be involved in that kind of violence. Of course, J.W. and Brady are friends and when Brady's client ends up murdered, both men start looking into who would have done it. It sounds complex but the story hangs together well with some fast-paced action near the end.

I don't think it's necessary to be a fan of either of the authors' series to enjoy these combined books, but I suspect it helps.

I was saddened to learn that author Philip Craig has died. He had written 19 novels in the Martha's Vineyard Mystery series with main character J.W. Jackson, including the the most recent: Vineyard Chill (to be published in June 2008).
Check out his website (maintained by his family) for more information: philiprcraig.com

First book of the Martha's Vineyard Mystery series with character J.W. Jackson:
A Beautiful Place to Die (1981)

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William Tapply's Brady Coyne series is one of my favourites.
First book: Death at Charity's Point (1984)

Related post:
Review of Out Cold (2006) Brady Coyne series Book #22
Review of One-Way Ticket (2007) Brady Coyne series Book #23

Sharon