Book Reviews Continue -- Over at the Writing Blog

The reviews are shorter now, and less formal, but with fresh energy. Don't miss the recommendations for new books, especially Chris McKinney's Eventide, Water City. Here you go: https://bethkanell.blogspot.com

Guest Reviews by MADonnelly: MYSTERIES by Isabella Maldonado, Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Becky Clark. A. J. Mackenzie, Kirsten Weiss, Antti Tuomainen

MADonnelly is a published poet, a Vermonter, a good friend. As guest reviewer on this blog, she brings a hint of Irish delight to the space. And you know what the Irish say: May your home always be too small to hold all your friends. The same applies to a good review blog. Thanks for these pithy takes on six mysteries, Friend!

DEATH BLOW by Isabella Maldonado (A Veranda Cruz mystery, Midnight Ink)

If you like tough cop heroines and  chilling, gruesome hit jobs, this one’s for you.  Add a savagely cruel Mexican drug smuggling cartel, a violent family history, and fast paced, tense police work and you’re in for a wild ride.  The author, with over 20 years in law enforcement, joins intimate knowledge of criminality and  police procedures with considerable writing skills and  a gift for  creating some psychologically complex characters.   Occasionally some tender heartedness, devotion  or cop loyalty shine through rough exteriors to relieve the horrors and appear at the right time.

TRAP by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, trans. Quentin Bates (Orenda Books)

As if trying to get custody of her son away from an abusive and criminal husband weren’t enough, Sonja herself is part of an international drug smuggling operation and in an on-again off-again lesbian relationship with a money laundering cocaine addict.  As she realizes the connections between the  banking and  drug plots, she finds herself being drawn in deeper and deeper. The more she desperately wants to get out and live a normal life with her son, the more she finds herself with a target on her back and unable to extricate herself from the increasing corruption, danger and threats. (Note the translator, who's an Icelandic noir author himself.)

FOUL PLAY ON WORDS by Becky Clark (Midnight Ink)

Witty, self deprecating  and somewhat neurotic mystery writer Charlemagne Russo arrives in Portland  for a mystery writer’s conference thinking all she has to do is give a keynote speech, catch up with her best friend and fly home to her boyfriend.  Instead  she immediately discovers that she is in charge of the conference with no help, her friend’s daughter has been kidnapped and the conference hotel has  been double booked with a dog show. Her friend has told her to focus on the conference  but Charlee can’t let the kidnapping go.  She must find the daughter. Motive? Financial insolvency? drug addiction? family secrets? illicit romance?  Everything’s possible  with lots of barking dogs,  rendezvous in dark passageways under the hotel, suspicious looks and cryptic remarks by staff and attendees.  The  ransom, possible multiple murders and conference deadlines  are all looming.  A  frantic, comic tale.

THE BODY IN THE BOAT by A. J. Mackenzie (Hardcastle & Chaytor Mystery, Zaffre)

There are a number and variety of strong female characters in this mystery. Particularly astute and principled is Mrs. Chaytor, who with her close friend Reverend Hardcastle  have  not only multiple murders to solve  but  troubled parishioners and refugees to tend to.  They do so with fierce intelligence and relentlessness, while struggling with their own personal sorrows and demons..     
    Romney Marsh in Georgian England during a war with the French,  is the rough, gloomy setting for this story and   its smuggling and banking worlds — and the sinister ways they are connected. Mrs. Chaytor and the Reverend, with the help of a couple of the smugglers (there are both”good” and “ very bad” smugglers) keep going over  every angle and all take pretty daring risks to uncover the chain of complicated events, the slippery perpetrators, the mysterious contrabands.

CHOCOLATE À LA MURDER by Kirsten Weiss (Midnight Ink)

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  A Ghost Detecting resident cat  (named G.D.) and  a haunted Mexican molilnolo ( a stick for stirring chocolate) are just what you might expect in a “Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum”.  But a  dead chocolatier, found covered in chocolate,  is probably not your  typical murder victim.  Museum owner Maddie Kosloski, a self appointed amateur detective wants desperately to solve the crime. She goes about it steadfastly and with wacky humor, much to the annoyance of friends, family, and the local police. There’s not as much assistance or interference from the paranormal as the name of the museum suggests, but Maddie does well without it.
  And maybe the chocolate shop, billing itself as  producing the most high end best chocolate ever, (“ hand crafted, ethically sourced, organically grown ingredients”) is not all it’s cracked up to be.



PALM BEACH FINLAND by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda Books)

Here’s a mystery that starts with a murder and the reader knows right away who did it, how and why. The real entertainment , sustained, deepened and embellished beautifully and sometimes hysterically, is in how the assortment of characters figure it out, react, compromise, diabolically pursue, bungle, cover up. There are big themes too: Life’s dreams and plans, failure, greed, friendship, revenge, brutality, love - and the ridiculous.  The author focuses masterfully on the characters’ eccentricities and inner lives.  Psychological complexity, wild humor, romance-  it’s a rich mix in the new, garish, plastic-palm-trees-and -all   Palm Beach Finland resort, “the hottest beach in Finland.”

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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One "Thriller," Two Views: If You're Interested in Comparing Reviews of Nakamura's Latest Noir

Today's New York Times Book Review section is crammed with "thriller" reviews. I'm not convinced about the label -- some of the reviews in here are standard-genre mysteries, to my way of thinking -- but I surely enjoyed spending my Sunday morning browsing the opinions expressed, including a review by Lee Child (!). Fun idea for a summer surprise issue.

When I'm considering writing about a mystery, I almost never look at any reviews before I've written my own. And afterward, of course, I'm usually on my way to the next book, so there isn't time to compare. But I noticed this review by author Jan Stuart of Fuminori Nakamura's newest Japanese noir, The Kingdom, which I'd already reviewed back in early June, so I took time to think about the difference in review approaches.

Stuart focuses on summarizing the plot of the book but doesn't seem to much like it. (Look at the last line of that review, in particular: "Much like its alternately victimized and victimizing antiheroine, “The Kingdom” pins the reader in the cross hairs of bullets and bombast.")

I wasn't happy about reading Nakamura's work at first, and if it hadn't been brought to the American market by one of my favorite publishers, Soho Press, I probably would not have persevered. But with time, and having read several by now, I've decided that for me, Nakamura's fiction confronts global violence in necessary ways. The Gun is his most obvious effort at this, but The Kingdom also fingers personal violence, the kind that's manipulative and mean and even the verbal kind that we associate with bullies and sometimes politics.

Because I write "historically hinged" fiction myself, I read a lot of scholarly history -- and then enjoy diverting into really good historical fiction, where the action comes alive and the crises are emotional. In the same way, in an era when crime haunts all news channels and Presidential campaigns, it's a treat to dip into the emotionally potent storytelling of Nakamura's books. Count me in for the next one, too.

Reviews Coming Thursday: Kwei Quartey, Mike Bond, Jacqueline Winspear

Excited to have three reviews to share on Thursday April 28 -- I wish I could share them today, but other deadlines have crashed through the week.

GOLD OF OUR FATHERS from Kwei Quartey is the fourth Darko Dawson mystery (fifth if you count the novella from 2013), set in Ghana, and confirms that the magic behind a really good mystery is the tension that crime and crimesolving place in the life of an important character.

KILLING MAINE from Mike Bond came out in 2015 and just won the New England Book Festival First Prize for Fiction -- lots of things to enjoy here, including the "buddies from Special forces" aspect and a focus on environmental risk.

And every Jacqueline Winspear novel of Maisie Dobbs is a great excuse to kick back and immerse in the story, and in JOURNEY TO MUNICH this World War I-related series reaches the terrifying start of the Second World War.

Check back in on Thursday afternoon. Sorry to keep you waiting!

New on This Week's Bookshelf: Neggers, Child, French, Turner, and Briefly, Penny

I purchased these and they came by mail this week, so count on reviews over the next few weeks -- I'm also working on a stack of advance review copies of other titles, and I'll probably interleave the two categories. But I wanted to let you know what I picked up most recently:

HARBOR ISLAND by Carla Neggers. Few realize this gifted author of romantic suspense is a Vermonter ... her multiple series span several police forces and take place on two continents. This one features Sharpe and Donovan. I always know a new Carla Neggers mystery means a deft plot twist, likeable sleuths, and a satisfying ending. I buy these "for me."

But I also can't resist Lee Child's Jack Reacher series -- where the pace drives me into staying up half the night, and Reacher has just enough honor and vulnerability to keep me wanting to know more. So I've picked up PERSONAL. Can hardly wait. (US cover on left, UK on right.)

The most depth and provocative ideas are sure to come in the Tana French book in my stack, THE SECRET PLACE. French rotates protagonists in her Dublin Murder Squad series and makes it clear how directly the crimes and sins of the past impact the present.

Which leads me to my fourth acquisiton: from poet and Iraq war veteran Brian Turner, the new memoir, MY LIFE AS A FOREIGN COUNTRY. Dave and I are already gently competing on who gets to read this one first -- we're passionate about Turner's writing, and the way he shows us both war and the human heart. No, it's not a mystery ... unless you count the enjoyable investigation of how Turner carries revelation and suspense and meaning into his pages.

Now, back to those other books I've already savored and want to mention -- oh yes, one more quick tidbit. I've changed my mind about something I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: I'm not going to review Louise Penny's new Armand Gamache mystery, THE LONG WAY HOME, in any detail. I think Penny dropped a lot of items in this one that should have been woven more effectively into the book, and I'm not happy with the way she tipped a crime into a book that otherwise reads as a series of personal investigations into art and creativity. Fans of the series -- and I am definitely a fan! -- will want this anyway for the sake of the Three Pines characters, but I think it's best viewed as a draft of a better book she could have written. Those who explore her website or follow her newsletters know she's had a hard year personally, and I tip my hat to her for completing her work within the yearly publishing schedule that her fame now demands. Everyone deserves a "pass" at least once in a writing career, and I'll let this book slide without further comment.

New Nonfiction on Spy Kim Philby: Two Lively Reviews and an Interview

The espionage novels of John Le Carré, for me, are more than classic spy fiction -- they are the material I go to repeatedly when I want to analyze for myself how a gifted storyteller can deepen a sentence or passage, open a character, revel in rich description without slowing the action.

So I listened eagerly to this morning's National Public Radio interview with author Ben Macintyre, whose new book is A SPY AMONG FRIENDS: KIM PHILBY AND THE GREAT BETRAYAL. And it's a sign of how fiction can become part of us that I thought, "Amazing! The way Macintyre described him, Kim Philby was enormously like Le Carré's character Bill Haydon!"

And that's almost exactly backwards. Le Carré built Bill Haydon, nemesis of his loyal British spymaster George Smiley, after considerable research into Kim Philby. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) was the result, ten years after the end of Philby's espionage career.

The review of A SPY AMONG FRIENDS in today's New York Times book review section uses a quote from Le Carré at the end of the review, in a very satisfying way. In fact, the novelist adds an afterword to Macintyre's new book, sharing notes from his 1986 interview with Nicholas Elliot, a fellow spy (loyal in this case to the British) who hero-worshipped Kim Philby until Philby's shocking life as a double agent, working for the Soviets, was revealed.

What makes Macintyre's book especially appealing to me is his willingness to dive into Philby's psychology -- as well as Macintyre's established record of portraying the English with nine previous books that unearth and vividly capture betrayal and crime among the "well-dresssed British men in danger" (Boston Globe reviewer Matthew Price's phrase).

For a delicious set of view of the book, check out today's review and the interview (which will be available as an audio file after noon today). As NY Times reviewer Walter Isaacson wrote, "I had to keep reminding myself that it was not a novel." This book will be a great treat for fans of espionage fiction, and for those who love a classic British mystery.

The New York Times review is here.

The Boston Globe review is here.

And for the NPR review, click here.

Recommended Summer Reading 1: AMATEUR SLEUTHS

Heaps of desk work, "yards" of garden tasks, but still ... so many books, so much pleasure.

Starting this evening, I'll let you know about four delightful summer reads in the "Amateur Sleuths" category:

KILLER PHYSIQUE, a Savannah Reid mystery, by G. A. McKevett, a.k.a. Sonja Massie.

BOILED OVER, a Maine Clambake mystery, by Barbara Ross.

'TIL DIRT DO US PART, a Local Foods mystery, by Edith Maxwell.

SCENE OF THE CLIMB by Kate Dyer-Seeley.

Yes, all those authors are women -- interesting, isn't it? Then there's a terrific handful of dark mysteries, with more of a mix of gender for the authors; hope you can check in regularly over the next few days.

Tightly Spun Traditional Mystery, British, 1933: Barbara Cleverly, A SPIDER IN THE CUP

This week the new Barbara Cleverly title in the Joe Sandilands Investigation series reached publication via Soho Crime -- good news indeed! A SPIDER IN THE CUP is the 11th in the series, and the steady, sane, compassionate character of this inspector, by now Assistant Commissioner, anchors this fast-moving and suspenseful crime novel.

It's 1933 in England: a time of recovery from the Great War, and of enthusiastic embrace of the playfulness coming across the Atlantic: madcap dancing, women with short hair and short skirts, and the amazing movie King Kong -- even Joe can quote the movie's famous line spoken over King Kong's dead body: "Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes ... it was Beauty killed the Beast."

Joe adds lightly to the line, "A lesson we beasts should take to heart, Bill," as his irritation with former a former colleague rises. Bill Armitage had another name when Joe knew him last, but the man's peculiar mix of capability and betrayal has Joe on edge just as much now as before.

And this time, they're supposed to be working together, protecting an American senator attending political talks in England. But Senator Kingstone is a risk taker, as well as a passionate man, and when it appears that his lover has been kidnapped, perhaps tortured, Kingstone and Joe Sandilands struggle to name the perpetrator. An Englishman, probably, from the Shakespearean quote that arrives as a threat -- one to which the senator adds another part of a speech from that political suspense classic, Julius Caesar: "Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, / Whilst bloody treason flourished over us."

Significantly, the conference Kingstone is attending, where he's struggling to grasp and affect relationships among European leaders, is also starting to confront the possibility of a second German power rising from the ashes of the previous war. This ominous shadow is as present as the evil that's sparking the crimes Sandilands confronts. Cleverly, as in her other 10 books in this series, adroitly paints the temper of the times as backdrop to her detection drama. Treason seems all too likely.

You don't need to read any of the other books in the series before this one -- it has few connections to the preceding volume. But readers who are already fond of Joe's loyal family members and their "very English" lives can expect some delights, as Joe takes steps to keep Kingstone safe, then lays an old-fashioned trap of his own for the international criminals on his track. Agatha Christie fans, Jacqueline Winspear readers, and those following one or both of the Charles Todd series may also find A SPIDER IN THE CUP deeply satisfying.

Cleverly's books are among the ones I look forward to each year, knowing I'll get a good read with believable twists and suspense, and an investigator whose character inspires me to be a bit braver, more committed, and more effective. If you can't fit this one into your summer reading, I hope you add it to the stack by the reading chair, for intrigue and adventure in the weeks ahead.

Our First Online Sale: 35% Off All Listings (Mysteries, Poetry, More)

We're honored that ABE Books selected Kingdom Books for its new program in allowing some small (boutique!) booksellers to offer a discount through its online listings of our books. From now through July 27, 2013, all our yummy mysteries, poetry (yes, we re-listed hundreds of poetry books, many signed, because we knew this was coming), and quirky eccentric delights that we couldn't resist -- they are ALL 35% off.

Hope you're ready to browse. Here's an easy link: http://www.abebooks.com/kingdom-books-waterford-vt-u.s.a/1498832/sf

I've saved up boxes for shipping, and Dave is ready to answer any questions about condition, authors, and more.

Reviews coming ASAP—on Carsten Stroud's amazing new thriller; plus a book in the new genre of "Thuglit"; and more.