Time to re-read my favourite Sherlock Holmes Christmas story:
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (or read it online here)

and my one of my favourite Holmes spin-offs:

Mrs. Hudson and the Malabar Rose

Summary: When a priceless ruby known as the Malabar Rose vanishes while being guarded by Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson, the formidable Mrs. Hudson sets out to give a lesson in criminal deduction for her most famous and logical of tenants, the master sleuth himself. NoveList

## Related post: MBTB review of Mrs. Hudson and the Malabar Rose

* * *

2011 Christmas mysteries include:

Elizabeth Duncan: A Killer's Christmas in Wales

Book # 2 with Penny Brannigan, a manicurist and expatriate Canadian living in Llanelen, Wales

Summary: As the townsfolk of the Welsh valley town of Llanelen settle in for the snowiest winter in 25 years, an American stranger arrives. Harry Saunders charms the ladies and convinces Evelyn Lloyd, a wealthy widow, to invest money with him. When he goes missing with her money his body is soon discovered with a letter opener belonging to Mrs. Lloyd in his back. It's up to Penny Brannigan to prove her innocence.

Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Widow of Windsor

Book # 2 with India Black, a young madam running a brothel catering to gentlemen, in 1870s London, England

Summary: Spy for Queen Victoria, India Black, disguises herself as a servant to protect Her Highness from a possible assassination attempt by Scottish nationalists while spending the Christmas holidays in Balmoral. NoveList

.
.
.

Alan Bradley: I Am Half Sick of Shadows

Book # 4 with Flavia de Luce, an 11-year old sleuth and aspiring chemist in 1950, in the small village of Bishop’s Lacey, England

Summary: Colonel de Luce rents his beloved estate of Buckshaw to a film company. They will be shooting a movie over the Christmas holidays with a reclusive star. She is widely despised, so it is to no one's surprise when she turns up murdered, strangled by a length of film from one of her own movies! With a blizzard raging outside and Buckshaw locked in, the house is full of suspects. But Flavia de Luce is more than ready to put aside her investigations into the existence of Father Christmas to solve this yuletide country-house murder. NoveList

## Related post: MBTB review of I Am Half Sick of Shadows

* * * * *

Want more Christmas and Holiday mysteries?
Check out the book list Holiday Mysteries (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's) (in the Reader's Cafe/Book & Author lists/Mysteries)

## Christmas mystery posts from previous years:

Holiday Mysteries Update 2010

Update for 2009: Holiday Mysteries (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's) (contains plot descriptions)

Murder by the Book discussion group meeting: Chilly Bones: Winter and Winter Holiday Mysteries (contains star ratings and plot descriptions)

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Breaking Silence
by Linda Castillo

American police procedural, Rural

Book # 3 with Kate Burkholder, female chief of police in the Amish town of Painters Mill, Ohio

Summary: When Solly and Rachel Slabaugh, along with Solly's brother Abel, are found dead in a hog pit, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates the gruesome scene. Once again teaming up with Agent John Tomasetti, Kate reveals that the death may not have been accidental, but one of the most horrific hate crimes ever to befall the Amish community of Painter's Creek. NoveList

First book: Sworn to Silence

More historical mysteries for you:

Troubled Bones (2011)
By Jeri Westerson

Historical Mystery featuring disgraced knight Crispin Guest

4th book in a series

Disgraced knight Crispin Guest gets himself into some serious trouble in London and as a result is forced to accept an assignment far out of town. The Archbishop of Canterbury has specifically requested Guest to investigate a threat against the bones of saint and martyr Thomas a Beckett, which are on display in the cathedral in Canterbury. The archbishop has received letters threatening the safety of the artifacts, and he wants Guest to protect them and uncover whoever is after them.

When he arrives at Canterbury, Guest is accosted by an old acquaintance from court – one Geoffrey Chaucer – and is surrounded by a group in town on a pilgrimage. Trapped amongst the pilgrims (who were, quite possibly, the model for Chaucer’s famous story cycle), looking for a murderer, a hidden heretic and a solution to the riddle that will allow him to go back home, Crispin Guest finds his considerable wit and intellect taxed to its very limit. (Book Description)

First book in the series: Veil of Lies (2008)

* * *
India Black and the Widow of Windsor (2011)
By Carol K. Carr

Historical Mystery featuring India Black, a saucy brothel owner who also spies for Queen Victoria

2nd in a series

Black is back-Her Majesty's favorite spy is off to Scotland in this new adventure to ensure the Queen doesn't end up getting killed.

When Queen Victoria attends a séance, the spirit of her departed husband, Prince Albert, insists she spend Christmas at their Scottish home in Balmoral. Prime Minister Disraeli suspects the Scottish nationalists plan to assassinate the Queen-and sends the ever resourceful India and the handsome British spy, French, to the Scottish highlands.

French will take the high road, looking for a traitor among the guests-and India will take the low road, disguised as a servant in case an assassin is hiding among the household staff. India is certain that someone at Balmoral is determined to make this Her Majesty's last Christmas... (Book Description)

First Book in the series: India Black (2011)

* * *
A Crimson Warning (2011)
By Tasha Alexander

Historical Mystery featuring Lady Emily and her dashing husband Colin

6th in a series

In early summer 1893, someone is splashing red paint on the doorsteps of prominent London citizens, a warning that their most scandalous secrets are about to be exposed. One of the first targets is Mr. Dillman, an industrialist promoting social justice. When he is killed in a warehouse fire, Colin Hargreaves, an agent of the Crown, is requested to investigate. Colin and his wife, Lady Emily, begin their work as a team to find the connection among the paint, the secrets, and the murder...(Modified review taken from Library Journal)

First Book in the series: And Only to Deceive (2005)

A Bitter Truth (2011)
By Charles Todd

Historical Mystery featuring WWI nurse Bess Crawford

4th book in a series

Trying to help a woman in distress, World War I nurse and accidental sleuth Bess Crawford learns that no good deed goes unpunished

When battlefield nurse Bess Crawford returns from France for a well-earned Christmas leave, she finds a bruised and shivering woman huddled in the doorway of her London residence. The woman has nowhere to turn, and propelled by a firm sense of duty, Bess takes her in.

Once inside Bess’s flat, the woman reveals that a quarrel with her husband erupted into violence, yet she wants to return home—if Bess will go with her to Sussex. Realizing that the woman is suffering from a concussion, Bess gives up a few precious days of leave to travel with her. But she soon discovers that this is a good deed with unforeseeable consequences.

What Bess finds at Vixen Hill is a house of mourning. The woman’s family has gathered for a memorial service for the elder son, who died of war wounds. Her husband, home on compassionate leave, is tense, tormented by jealousy and his own guilty conscience.

Then, when a troubled houseguest is found dead, Bess herself becomes a prime suspect in the case. This murder will lead her to a dangerous quest. (Book Description)

First book in the series: A Duty to the Dead (2009)

posted by Shiela

Those of you who have been entranced by the quirky series with precocious 11 year old Flavia de Luce will be interested to know that author Alan Bradley spent 25 years at the University of Saskatchewan. He was the director of television engineering at the U of S media centre.


Alan Bradley: I Am Half Sick of Shadows (2011) ****

British cozy (of a sort)
Amateur sleuth

Book # 4 with Flavia de Luce, an 11-year old sleuth and aspiring chemist in 1950, in the small village of Bishop’s Lacey, England

Summary: Colonel de Luce rents his beloved estate of Buckshaw to a film company. They will be shooting a movie over the Christmas holidays with a reclusive star. She is widely despised, so it is to no one's surprise when she turns up murdered, strangled by a length of film from one of her own movies! With a blizzard raging outside and Buckshaw locked in, the house is full of suspects. But Flavia de Luce is more than ready to put aside her investigations into the existence of Father Christmas to solve this yuletide country-house murder. NoveList

MBTB review: Every since I read the first book in this delightful series, I've looked forward to the next one - Flavia's point of view is priceless. The mystery was interesting enough, but for me the appeal is the characters and the setting.

First book: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

## Related post:
MBTB mini-review of The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag # 2

* * *

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say:

Christmas comes early for precocious Flavia de Luce with the arrival of a glamorous London film crew at Buckshaw, her family’s country house, in Agatha-winner Bradley’s fourth post-WWII mystery starring the endearing 11-year-old sleuth. Flavia, a chemistry prodigy, must push her previous project—concocting a super stickum to trap Santa—to the back burner after actress Phyllis Wyvern turns up dead in a wingback chair with “a length of ciné film, tied tightly, but neatly, in an elaborate black bow” around her throat. The murder investigation pits the cheeky schoolgirl’s considerable deductive prowess against the local constabulary—and puts her in grave danger. With its sharply drawn characters, including the hiss-worthy older de Luce sisters, and an agreeable puzzle playing out against the cozy backdrop of a British village at Christmas, this is a most welcome holiday gift for Flavia fans.

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Before the Poison
by Peter Robinson

Amateur sleuth, non-series

Chris, a film composer and widower, returns to the Yorkshire Dales to grieve his wife and write his piano sonata. He soon finds himself distracted, though, when he discovers that a murder was committed in his rented house by a woman who was one of the last women hanged in England. NoveList

This is a stand-alone, not one of Robinson's acclaimed Inspector Banks series.

Here are a few new historical mysteries I have come across:

Last Nocturne (2010)
By Marjorie Eccles

What could make a successful, happily married man take a gun and shoot himself? What made a young artist on the brink of fame throw himself to his death?

These are the questions facing Chief Inspector Lamb and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Cogan. Neither victim left a note behind to explain what drove him to take his own life, and it appears that nothing untoward had occurred in the weeks preceding their deaths. Having briefly met both victims, Lamb struggles to connect the impression he gained of the men with their final actions, and his close attention pays off when a postmortem reveals some surprising results.

With one case now looking like a suspicious death, Lamb looks for links between the two men. All paths seem to lead to the enigmatic figure of Mrs. Isobel Amberley and a mysterious event that took place one winter’s night in Vienna.

Beautifully written and highly evocative of the bustling streets of London and Vienna in the early twentieth century, Last Nocturne is an intriguingly complex mystery of passion and the devastating repercussions of a single action. (Book Description)

Infamous (2010)
By Ace Atkins

With the 1933 kidnapping of Oklahoma oil baron Charles Urschel, small-time bank robber George Kelly became “Machine Gun” Kelly. Atkins’ latest historical novel based on a real crime (following Devil’s Garden, 2009, about the Fatty Arbuckle scandal) makes it clear that Kelly’s wife, Kathryn, was the driving force behind his ascendance. George is shown to be an affable mug, a feckless dandy more interested in two-toned shoes and 16-cylinder Cadillacs than crime and machine guns, a crook who was dismissed as a lightweight by other gangsters. Kathryn, however, is a force of nature, a preening, determined-not-to-be-poor-again shopaholic, a celebrity-obsessed Lady Macbeth. But it’s Atkins’ prodigious research that makes this novel a compelling road trip through Depression-era America. He vividly portrays the Dust Bowl, foreclosures, the grinding poverty, gnawing hunger, desperation, and the rage at bankers (most of which resonate in today’s America); and he captures the imminent end of the gangsters’ heyday. Like many fine historical crime novels, Infamous offers a window on society, then and now. (Summary taken from Booklist)

Deadly Inheritance (2009)
By Simon Beaufort

Sir Geoffrey Mappestone, home from the Crusades, is eager to return to Jerusalem to fight again. Unfortunately, he has fallen out with his patron, Prince Tancred, so a return to battle will be difficult. Besides, his sister, Joan, insists that Geoffrey should marry and produce an heir. But Geoffrey is focused instead on solving the mysterious death of his brother Henry six months earlier. Witnesses are reluctant to talk, and Geoffrey’s quest is frustrated at every turn. So when an old friend invites him to visit, Geoffrey welcomes the distraction. Then Geoffrey’s life is threatened and several other guests die, and he’s convinced that there’s a link to his investigation into his brother’s death. Or is there? Perhaps it’s something to do with his choice of a bride—the merging of the great estates through marriage can affect the politics of the region and even the country. When more deaths occur, Geoffrey knows he has stumbled into something dark and deadly. Meticulously researched, cleverly plotted, and rich in characterization and period ambience, this is another fine entry in Beaufort’s entertaining and enjoyable twelfth-century historical mystery series. (Summary taken from Booklist)

First title in this series:Murder in the Holy City (1998)

Vienna Secrets (2010)
By Frank Tallis

The fifth Max Liebermann mystery (following Fatal Lies, 2009) finds the psychiatrist once again wrapped up in a police investigation. This time headless bodies start appearing in front of statues all across Vienna. Tallis continues to evoke the sights, sounds, food, and culture of turn-of the-century Vienna; but this time anti-Semitism is a dark whisper in the background, and Liebermann, a non-observant Jew, finds himself worried for his career. The historical details of police work and forensic investigation again are a strong point, and with this book’s inclusion of a trip to Prague, readers are introduced to another fascinating city. Liebermann’s trip is inspired by a desire to understand more about his past and culture, and the resulting backstory will please series fans interested in knowing more about this appealing protagonist. A solid entry in an excellent historical mystery series.

The first title in this series:
A Death in Vienna (2007)

posted by Shiela

The Mystery Memo is a log of all of my mystery reading, with brief comments and a star rating for each book read. It is published every 4 to 6 weeks. Some of these books have longer reviews or mini-reviews on this blog. In that case, a link will be supplied.

Click here for a printable text-only copy of Mystery Memo # 109 (in Microsoft Word). Here is your chance to download the full list.

This Mystery Memo has one book in the Perfect Read category, Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer

* * *

Nevada Barr: Burn (2010) ****

Book # 16 with U.S. National Park ranger Anna Pigeon. This book is set in New Orleans.

MBTB mini-review: Anna is still on vacation/stress leave, staying with her friend, a blind singer named Geneva. Rather than the outdoor settings Barr’s books usually have, this book is set entirely in the city, the subject matter: child prostitution and sexual abuse. Anna believes one of Geneva’s neighbours is a pedophile.

This book might not be the best one to start the series with, but it’s a fine read.

First book: Track of the Cat (1993).

MBTB review of Winter Study # 14

MBTB review of Borderline # 15

* * *

Judith Cutler: Still Waters (2008) ****

British police procedural.

Book # 3 with senior police detective Fran Harman. Fran, in her 50s, is thinking about retirement.

MBTB mini-review: An old murder case is being appealed so Fran takes a look at it – the missing woman’s husband and his friend maintain they didn’t kill the woman and the body was never found.
I’m making my way through all of Judith Cutler’s series. This is one of my favourites.

First two with Fran Harman:
Life Sentence
Cold Pursuit

* * *

Paul Doiron: The Poacher’s Son (2010) *** ½

Book # 1 with Maine game warden Mike Bowditch.

MBTB mini-review of Poacher's Son

Non-stop action. Recommended for fans of Nevada Barr, series with Anna Pigeon, a park ranger at various national parks in the USA (e.g. Track of the Cat) or C. J. Box, series with Joe Pickett, a game warden in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming (e.g. Open Season).

The next book with Maine game warden Mike Bowditch: Trespasser

* * *

Kathleen George: Taken (2001) ****

Part American police procedural/part amateur detective

Book # 1 with Pittsburgh police detective Richard Christie.

MBTB mini-review: Actress Marina Benedict sees what she believes to be the kidnapping of a baby and becomes a major witness to the crime. Some of the book is from her point of view, some from that of police detective Christie. The writing just pulled me along.

Next book: Fallen (2004)

* * *

Jane Jakeman: Fool’s Gold (1998) ***

Historical, set in England in 1833. Amateur detective.

Book # 3 with Lord Ambrose Malfine, in love with Elizabeth, a former nanny.

MBTB mini-review: Thinking over Malfine’s proposal of marriage, Elizabeth takes a job as a paid companion to the young wife of a Lord. When Malfine gets a letter from Elizabeth describing the mysterious poisoning death of the live-in physician in the household, he rides over to find out what is going on.

First two books:
Let There Be Blood
The Egyptian Coffin

* * *

Craig Johnson: Junkyard Dogs (2010) ****

Book # 4 with sheriff Walt Longmire in the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming.

MBTB mini-review: The local junkman comes to police attention after a severed thumb is discovered at the junkyard.
Recommended to fans of Donald Harstadt (e.g. Eleven Days), Steven Havill (e.g. Heartshot) and early Archer Mayor (Open Season).

First book: The Cold Dish (2004)

## Related post: MBTB review of Dark Horse # 5

* * *

Faye Kellerman: Hangman (2010) ****

American police procedural.

Book # 19 with Peter Decker, L.A.P.D. homicide lieutenant.

MBTB mini-review: Terry asks Peter Decker to protect her during a visit from her husband Chris, a professional hit man. Peter feels obligated to help her, being involved in this couple’s lives for many years, since Chris served time for a murder he didn’t do (in Justice, 1995).
I recommend starting with one of the earlier books or at the beginning.

First book: The Ritual Bath (1986)

* * *

Jonathon Kellerman: Deception (2010) ***

American police procedural/consulting psychologist

Book # 25 with psychologist Alex Delaware and his friend police detective Milo in LA.

MBTB mini-review: When a teacher at a very classy private high school is found mysteriously murdered and lying in a tub of dry ice, there is pressure on Milo to keep the questioning away from the school.
I loved the early books in this series and keep reading them just in case the magic returns.

First book: When the Bough Breaks (1985)

* * *

Watch for Mystery Memo # 109 part two, coming soon.

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Informationist
by Taylor Stevens

Action/adventure/lone wolf investigator/thriller

Book # 1 with Vanessa Michael Munroe, the daughter of American missionaries in Africa, now working in Texas researching developing countries for corporations

Summary: Dealing information to wealthy clients throughout the world, Vanessa Munroe hopes to leave her unconventional past behind her until a mission to find the missing daughter of a Texas oil billionaire forces her to return to the central Africa region of her youth. NoveList

It's time for me to re-read the first book in one of my favourite series:

Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs *****

Book # 1 with Maisie Dobbs, a psychologist and investigator based in 1920s and 1930s London, England

Summary: Private detective Maisie Dobbs must investigate the reappearance of a dead man who turns up at a cooperative farm called the Retreat that caters to men who are recovering their health after World War I.

## Related post: MBTB full review of Maisie Dobbs # 1

* * * * *

Other mystery series that take place during or just after World War I or II:

Charles Todd's series with
Ian Rutledge, a shell-shocked World War I veteran returning to his job at Scotland Yard, in London, England.

First book:
A Test of Wills **** ½

Summary: Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after fighting in the war, still suffering from shell shock. His next case, with a war-ravaged ex-soldier as the witness, could spell disaster for him. NoveList

* *

Charles Todd's new series with
Bess Crawford, a British army nurse in WWI

First book: A Duty to the Dead *** ½

Summary: Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing is far different from that of the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. At the outbreak of WWI, she volunteers for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic. On one voyage, she promises to a deliver a message from a dying officer to his brother. Once she's able to do so, she's disturbed at the brother's indifferent reception of the message, and when an unexpected turn of events provides her with an opportunity to stay with the family for a short time, she takes it. NoveList

* *

Barbara Cleverly's series with
Commander Joe Sandilands, a World War I veteran and Scotland Yard detective assigned to post-WWI India

First book: The Last Kashmiri Rose (2001) *****

Summary: In March of each of the past five years the wife of a cavalry officer in the Bengal Greys has met with and violent and terrifying death. World War I hero and detective Joe Sandilands finds himself running a race against time. Publisher's description

* *

James Benn's series with Billy Boyle, a Boston cop from a family of Boston cops, on the staff of distant relative, General Eisenhower, during WWII

First book: Billy Boyle ****

Summary: Billy Boyle is a Boston cop, from a family of Boston cops, but he is a reluctant soldier who prefers walking the beat in Southie to fighting Nazis. Using her cousin by marriage, a certain General Eisenhower, Billys mother lands her son a seemingly soft job with Ikes staff in London. But Ike wants Billy to use his investigative know-how to sniff out a possible spy in the Allies inner circle. Young Billy, oversold by his mother as a crackerjack detective, is definitely in over his head, especially when it turns out that the apparent suicide of a Norwegian dignitary may have been the work of the spy. . . . Booklist

## Related post: MBTB mini-review of The First Wave # 2

* *
Want more titles?
Here is a list in the Regina Public Library catalogue generated by the key words "world war mystery fiction".

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
The Affair
by Lee Child

Action/adventure/lone wolf investigator

Book # 16 with Jack Reacher, ex-military policeman in the USA

Summary: Child’s compelling 16th thriller featuring incorruptible vigilante Jack Reacher rewinds the clock to 1997 when Reacher was still a military cop and working on the case that led to his eventual break with the Army. Reacher must figure out whether the shocking murder of 27-year-old Janice May Chapman in Carter Crossing, Miss., has any connection with nearby Fort Kelham, where Army Rangers are trained. . . . Publisher's Weekly

If you haven't started this series yet, read The Affair as a prequel to the first book, Killing Floor

## Related posts:
MBTB review of Bad Luck and Trouble # 11

MBTB review of 61 Hours # 14

Here are three new mysteries I've recently read and enjoyed. These were new authors to me.

* * *

Jane Casey: The Burning ****

British police procedural
Book # 1 with Maeve Kerrigan, an ambitious 28-year old detective constable, in London, England

MBTB mini-review: The first person narration by Maeve, a young police detective, kept my interest in this modern take on the British police procedural. Fast-paced, with an interesting switch of narrators once in a while.

Here's what Booklist has to say:
Billed as starring a serial killer, a sadist who lures young women to out-of-the-way spots and after murdering them sets fire to the remains, this London-based story opens with a tipsy girl leaving a pub alone after dark. She accepts a ride from a shadowy stranger. She notices he’s heading in the wrong direction, and you know what happens next, don’t you? No, you don’t. Red herrings are the genre’s staple, but Casey is especially good at misdirection. Her approach involves multiple points of view: chapters narrated by a could-be victim alternate with accounts of detective work by the policewoman assigned to the case. The book is too long, the descriptions of police procedure are ponderous, and the policewoman has an infuriating way of stepping on the tension to examine her psychological state. But toward the end it becomes clear that the author has been patiently, craftily assembling a portrait of deprivation and resentment that almost makes murder seem just and reasonable. The final pages bear terrific emotional weight.

* * *

Rosamund Lupton: Sister (2010) ****

Non-series. Amateur detective.

MBTB mini-review: Beatrice Hemming, a Londoner settled in the U.S., makes a frantic trip back to London after she finds out her pregnant sister is missing. When the sister's body is found, it looks like suicide, but Beatrice is convinced her sister wouldn’t kill herself.

An interesting narrative voice - the book is told in the first person, as Beatrice writes a long letter in her head to her dead sister.

A good book to curl up with on a chilly winter's day.

Here's what Booklist had to say:
/* Starred Review */ Murder mystery? Psychological thriller? Medical-ethical treatise? Yes to all, but so much more, too. Finally, the category doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that Lupton’s remarkable debut novel is a masterful, superlative-inspiring success that will hook readers (and keep them guessing) from page one.

Beatrice Hemmings has moved to the U.S. and made a shiny, successful life for herself. But when her younger sister, Tess, is found dead — apparently having killed herself — Beatrice is shocked, bewildered, and grief-stricken. How could her full-of-life sister commit suicide? When Beatrice arrives back in London, she learns that Tess had a reason to commit suicide — her longed-for baby had just been stillborn. Beatrice is stunned, but the more she considers what happened, the more she is sure Tess was murdered. Vowing to investigate, Beatrice writes a letter to Tess (it is this technique that shapes the book) to describe her efforts to find the truth. But as the letter goes on, it is clear that Beatrice is on what could be a fruitless quest, and readers will begin to wonder whether the things that don’t add up are real, or whether it’s Beatrice who’s losing her sanity? The powerful, heart-stopping ending lays bare the truth, and even readers who thought they’d guessed the outcome will be shocked.

A chilling, gripping, tragic, heartwarming, life-affirming enigma of a story.

* * *

John Verdon: Think of a Number (2010) ****
Investigator/police procedural/thriller

Investigator/American police procedural

Book # 1 with Dave Gurney, a recently retired 40-something NYPD homicide detective with a reputation for catching serial killers, in rural upstate New York

MBTB review: A college friend contacts Dave for help after receiving a mysterious letter that claimed to know what number he was thinking of. When the man is murdered, Dave is asked to join the task force, and discovers a link to several similar murders. Good, fast-paced, always from Dave’s point of view. I liked Dave, torn between getting back to the police work he loves and the wife he promised to share an early retirment with.

The next one: Shut Your Eyes Tight

Here's what Booklist had to say:
/*Starred Review*/ NYPD’s most celebrated detective, Dave Gurney, has retired to the rural Catskills with his wife, Madeleine. The country was Madeleine’s idea, but Dave is missing the animating feature of his adult life: the intellectual problem of understanding serial killers and apprehending them. Then, Mark Mellery, a man he knew in college, shows Dave some bizarre and obliquely threatening messages he has received. Mellery is soon brutally murdered, and Dave becomes a consultant in a case that grows into serial murders. Once again, Dave is driven, but the tectonic plates of his marriage threaten to shift. Verdon’s superb debut novel is a riveting thriller with a wonderfully baffling crime. Dave, Madeleine, their marriage, and Mellery are compellingly observed; lesser characters are vividly sketched. The sense of place, whether the Catskills at the onset of winter, or the shabby Bronx, is almost visceral. Police procedures and forensics—and the politics of a high-profile crime—seem knowing. Think of a Number is a 10, and crime fans of almost every persuasion will love it. An outstanding debut.

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Trespasser by Paul Doiron

Book # 2 with Mike Bowditch, a game warden in the wilds of Maine

Stumbling on a case that suggests that a man convicted of murder seven years earlier may have been framed, game warden Mike Bowditch ignores warnings by local authorities and risks his relationship with his girlfriend to conduct a secret investigation. NoveList

First book: The Poacher's Son

## Related post: MBTB mini-review of The Poacher's Son

A quick browse in the mystery section of my local bookstore revealed a few titles I will be adding to my "to be read" list:
.

Peter Robinson: Before the Poison (2011)

Chris, a film composer and widower, returns to the Yorkshire Dales to grieve his wife and write his piano sonata. He soon finds himself distracted, though, when he discovers that a murder was committed in his rented house by a woman who was one of the last women hanged in England. NoveList

This is a stand-alone and not part of Robinson's famous Inspector Banks series.

* * *

Val McDermid: Trick of the Dark

When clinical psychiatrist Charlie Flint is sent a mysterious package of cuttings about a brutal murder that occurred in the grounds of her old Oxford college, she feels compelled to investigate. NoveList

Again, this is a stand-alone. I enjoy McDermid's series with forensic psychologist Dr. Tony Hill.

* * *

William Deverell: I'll See You in my Dreams

Book # 5 with Arthur Beauchamp, a scholarly, self-doubting lawyer retired as a hobbyist farmer on Garibaldi Island, off the coast of British Columbia

This fifth in the bestselling, award-winning Arthur Beauchamp series finds the outwardly crusty, poetry-loving, wily old lawyer compelled, by new developments, to look back at his first -- and most disastrous -- murder trial. While renewing his annual try for the Most Points in Vegetables and Fruits at the Garibaldi Island Fall Fair, Arthur Beauchamp is forced by new developments to revisit his first murder trial, which went horribly wrong. Now, nearly 50 years later, he is opening old wounds but also facing a chance for redemption and reconciliation. Publisher's description

posted by Sharon

WHAT I'M READING NOW:
Bones Under the Beach Hut
by Simon Brett

Amateur sleuth/cozy

Book # 12 with Carole Seddon, a retiree in Fethering, England

Description: The affluent seaside resort of Smalting is unaccustomed to crime. So when human remains are found beneath the floorboards of one of its beach huts, the community is awash with suspicion and fear.
Amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and best friend Jude are drawn into the mystery, and their suspicion quickly falls on attractive Philly Rose, a young Londoner newly arrived in the area, whose boyfriend has recently vanished in mysterious circumstances. (publisher's description)

First book: The Body on the Beach