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| Fatal Cajun Festival by Ellen ByronWhat happens: A small-town Louisiana Cajun music festival draws a local girl turned reality TV/music star, so Maggie Crozet helps her parents prepare their B&B for the singer and her assistants. But it isn't long before someone is murdered, and Maggie, with help from her cop boyfriend, must sort it all out and keep a steady supply of pecan pralines ready to sell at her family's festival booth (recipes included).
Series alert: This amusing 5th Cajun country novel is a delightful cozy that'll please fans of the genre as well as Cajun music lovers. |
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| The Long Call by Ann CleevesIntroducing: introspective DCI Matthew Venn of the Devon police, who grew up in a religious sect and is estranged from his family.
What happens: A murder victim with an interesting tattoo is found on a North Devon beach, and the case seems to be related to Venn's childhood church as well as his husband's job at a community center.
Read this next: William Shaw's Salt Lane or Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway mysteries -- both are evocative English mysteries that prominently feature police officers and are set near the coast. |
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| The Vanished Bride: A Brontë Sisters Mystery by Bella EllisIntroducing: Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë, three sisters in 1845 Yorkshire who love to write stories but have never been published.
What happens: A young wife and mother goes missing, leaving behind two small children and a large pool of blood, and the Brontë sisters, who live nearby, decide to investigate.
About the author: Bella Ellis is the pen name of British novelist Rowan Coleman; this is her atmospheric, well-researched first mystery and is a must for fans of the real-life Brontës. |
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| Heaven, My Home: A Highway 59 Novel by Attica LockeWhat happens: African American Texas Ranger Darren Matthews has a troubled marriage, an estranged mother who's blackmailing him, and a dangerous new case in a small town involving the missing child of an imprisoned white supremacist leader.
Series alert: This is the well-wrought 2nd novel in the Highway 59 series following the Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird.
Read it for: the evocative Caddo Lake setting in East Texas; the compelling look at race and politics. |
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| The Truth Behind the Lie by Sara Lövestam; translated by Laura WidebergThe (rookie) detective: a young, undocumented Iranian refuge who's an expert at living and working off the grid.
His ad: "Private detective. If the police can't help, call me!"
The only respondent: a desperate single mother whose six-year-old disappeared in a Stockholm mall four days earlier and who has "her own, very specific reasons" for not calling the cops.
For fans of: well-developed characters; surprising twists and turns. |
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| Vanishing in the Haight: A Colleen Hayes Mystery by Max TomlinsonIntroducing: tough-but-kindhearted Colleen Hayes, who served time for killing her abusive husband and now works as a security guard at an abandoned paint factory in 1978 San Francisco.
What happens: A wealthy dying man who wants answers about the unsolved murder of his 18-year-old daughter in Golden Gate Park 11 years ago asks Colleen, who recently found a missing girl, to investigate.
Read this next: For another mystery with a noir feel featuring a 1970s female ex-con turned detective, try Lisa Sandlin's Delpha Wade and Tom Phelan novels (the 2nd, The Bird Boys, came out in August). |
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If You Like: Deborah Crombie
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| Payment in Blood by Elizabeth GeorgeStarring: Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the Earl of Asherton; his prickly sergeant, Barbara Havers; and his forensic scientist friend, Simon St. James.
What happens: In this 2nd in a long-running series, the trio travels to Scotland to investigate the murder of a playwright at a snowbound manor, where one of the guests is the woman Lynley loves.
Why Deborah Crombie fans might like it: Elizabeth George's intelligent novels feature similar pacing and a fascinating (though very different) male-female Scotland Yard duo. |
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| The Crossing Places by Elly GriffithsWhat happens: In Norfolk, England, 40-something forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives in the remote Saltmarshes and is asked by married DCI Harry Nelson to examine the bones of a child found there. Nelson thinks the remains might be a girl missing for ten years, and, when another girl goes missing, the two work together -- and grow close to each other.
Why Deborah Crombie fans might like it: the strong sense of place; the characters’ complicated personal lives and relationships, which grow and change throughout the series (this is the 1st of 11 books, so far). |
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| The Case Has Altered: A Richard Jury Novel by Martha GrimesWhat it's about: Two women are murdered in the Lincolnshire fens and Inspector Richard Jury and his aristocratic pal, Melrose Plant, investigate when one of Jury's friends becomes the prime suspect.
Series alert: This is the cleverly plotted 14th entry in the popular Richard Jury series of police procedurals; the 25th book, The Old Success, is due in November.
Why Deborah Crombie fans might like it: Like Crombie, Martha Grimes is an American Anglophile who writes British police novels that follow a pleasing cast of characters over the course of many books. |
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