Joanna Brady's Back, Dealing with the Sad Remains of Innocence

Remains of Innocence - J. A. Jance

Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady’s morning began with one of those phone calls she dreaded: a child was missing. This case was a little different, since that particular child was chronologically well into his fifties. Within hours, the developmentally-disabled man’s body had been found; the remains of small, tortured animals beside it.

Had the man everyone in Bisbee believed a gentle giant been keeping a dark secret? Or was the artsy former mining town home to an incipient serial killer? The first answers would have to wait until the coroner performed an autopsy. But there was a little problem: he, too, was dead - murdered, in fact. On the opposite side of the country, Liza Machett had her own problems: while cleaning out the family home her dying mother had turned into a hoarder’s dream, she made a fascinating discovery. Mama had been hoarding more than old magazines; she’d been hoarding old hundred-dollar bills. Hundreds of hundreds, in fact. But when that old money began circulating after its long rest, Liza’s life became complicated. In the extreme: people around her began dying.

So Liza ran west toward the only family member she had left, her half-brother Guy Machett, MD, the coroner of Cochise County, Arizona... uh-oh.

Roo Jones is the Dark-Skinned James Bond: Hurricane Fever

Hurricane Fever - Tobias Buckell

Prudence “Roo” Jones returned to his old stomping grounds after he retired, sinking a chunk of a tidy nest egg into a spiffy catamaran so he could tour the Caribbean at will. He took his only living kin, his nephew Delroy, under his wing and settled down. Roo figured that he could live out his days sailing from island to island, dodging the omnipresent hurricanes that batter the slowly drowning landscape, occasionally ducking into a harbor to tip a Red Stripe with friends and replenish his larder.

That was before he got the mysterious phone call from his old running buddy Zee, a message that started by telling him, “…if you’re getting this message from me, it means I’m dead.” Yeah: dead. In another life he and Zee had done important work, and Roo knew without having to ask that his friend had died for something just as important. That’s why he did what the voice message asked; and that’s how the former Caribbean Intelligence Group operative’s once-quiet retirement turned upside down.

Not only was there a damned good reason, somebody made it personal…

1960s Noir or an Extended Male Sexual Fantasy? Much More the Latter...

Dark Blonde: A Mike Angel Mystery - David H. Fears

In the old days if a publisher wanted to sell a book by a new or unknown author, the company would send galley proofs to a newspaper’s book reviewer and lift complimentary lines from ensuing reviews for the dust jacket. They’d hope for a rave from the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle, but would settle for a positive mention from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel or the Sacramento Bee, if that’s what they could get. Too few newspapers have their own reviewers now, so publishers began to prevail on established authors to pen a blurb for the cover, most of which turned out so generic as to be curiously uninformative. Now, they simply cite the number of five-star reviews at amazon.com. That’s how Dark Blonde (David H. Fears) came across my desk – that, and it was free.

Now I happen to think that Amazon’s reviewers have little or no taste, and it’s rather hard to trust reviewers like the infamous Harriet K, whose daily review output was often in double digits (one reason I have my own collection of reviews that pan books…). And, as usual, I was right: no matter how many five-star reviews (38) or the average star count (3.6 of 5), this book is definitely a stinker.

Steph Dodges a Bullet - and Other Stuff - for Top Secret Twenty-One

Top Secret Twenty-One - Janet Evanovich

She’s up to twenty-one now, and she’s still a ditz – but she’s a ditz who somehow manages to get results. She’s Trenton’s favorite bond recovery agent, the one and only Stephanie Plum. If she’s coming for you, you’d better watch out (and put your clothes back on…)

The skip of the week is sleazeball car dealer Jimmy Poletti, charged with “importing underage girls from Mexico” (no further details available – after all, this isn’t a courtroom drama). Poletti’s former bookkeeper (maybe I should say “bookcooker”?), little person Randy Briggs has attached himself to Steph for some reason, all three feet-zero of him. Poletti’s in the wind, but his poker-playing buddies keep turning up leaking blood from numerous holes and things around Briggs keep exploding. Weird, huh?

Meanwhile, Ranger’s business is on high alert as a one-eyed Russian mercenary, with whom Carlos Manoso has a messy history, is in town looking for revenge. Even as Steph and her crew forage through the wilds of Stark Street looking for Poletti and a few other FTAs, the cyclops is out there with a sharp knife and some deadly goodies. But never fear: Stephanie Plum always gets her man… whether it’s Ranger or Morelli!

Tribalism in 1970s Atlanta: Karin Slaughter's "Cop Town"

Cop Town - Karin Slaughter

Atlanta, Georgia, 1975: it's a city undergoing change, but not in every department. The cop shop may be the worst, awash with good ol' boys who still think the darkies should stay in their place and that a woman is only good for one thing - and that thing certainly ain't police work. As Cop Town opens, the fifth policeman in recent weeks lies bleeding to death, shot by the hand known only as The Shooter. 

Into this steaming morass steps newly-minted patrol officer Kate Murphy, a gorgeous and marvelously stacked woman with two big secrets: one, she's a widow and two, she's not Irish. She was born Kaitlyn Herschel, Dutch and - gasp - Jewish.  Murphy's new partner is the brother of the man whose patrol partner bled out on page one, and the niece of the goodest and oldest of those good old boys that run the station house. As Murphy struggles to bear up under the avalanche of harassment, she learns that even her sisters in arms won't be much help. Yet it's the novice investigator who discovers The Shooter's pattern - and it's the rookie who just might be his next victim.