|
Party girls die in pearls : an Oxford girl mystery
by Plum Sykes
It’s 1985, and at Oxford University, Pimm’s, punting, and ball gowns are de rigeur. Ursula Flowerbutton, a studious country girl, arrives for her first term anticipating nothing more sinister than days spent poring over history books in gilded libraries—and, if she’s lucky, an invitation to a ball. But when she discovers a glamorous classmate on a chaise longue with her throat cut, Ursula is catapulted into a murder investigation. Determined to bag her first scoop for the famous student newspaper Cherwell, Ursula enlists the help of trend-setting American exchange student Nancy Feingold to unravel the case. While navigating a whirl of black-tie parties and secret dining societies, the girls discover a surfeit of suspects. From broken-hearted boyfriends to snobby Sloane Rangers, lovelorn librarians to dishy dons, none can be presumed innocent—and Ursula’s investigations mean that she may be next on the murderer’s list. Clueless meets Agatha Christie in this wickedly funny tale of high society and low morals, the first book in Plum Sykes’ irresistible new series.
|
|
| Desolation Flats by Andrew HuntHistorical Mystery. Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats are the preeminent location for those looking to break the land speed record. In the summer of 1938, the men hoping to do so are Hank Jensen, a local inventor; Clive Underhill, a wealthy English motorist; and Rudy Heinrich, a German who may be involved with the Nazis. When Clive goes missing, Art Oveson of the Salt Lake City Missing Persons' Bureau (Hank's cousin) investigates the Brit's disappearance -- and soon needs to figure out who's killed the man's younger brother. Following a murky trail that might implicate his best friend and former police partner, Oveson plunges ahead, looking for the truth. Meanwhile, Oveson's wife is depressed and his eldest daughter announces she's leaving the LDS Church. For another look at Mormon life via character-driven crime fiction, try Mette Ivie Harrison's The Bishop's Wife. |
|
|
Little deaths : a novel
by Emma Flint
A gripping suspense tale set in 1960s New York and inspired by true events follows the investigation of a cocktail waitress whose two young children have been brutally murdered and a rookie tabloid reporter who would uncover the truth. A first novel.
|
|
| Inherit the Bones by Emily LittlejohnMystery. A 19-year-old clown from a traveling circus has his throat slashed in small Cedar Valley, Colorado. Why? Unmarried and six months' pregnant, police detective Gemma Monroe investigates the denizens of the traveling circus to answer that question -- but when she discovers that the victim is actually the presumed-dead son of a prominent local family, she traces the new crime back to a chain of events that began nearly 40 years ago and involves the murders of two boys. This atmospheric, lyrical debut novel -- hopefully the 1st in a series -- is a good choice for fans of both James Lee Burke and Karin Slaughter. |
|
|
Cruel is the night
by Karo Hämäläinen
Three cell phones ring in an opulent London apartment. The calls go unanswered because their recipients are all dead. Earlier that night, four Finnish friends meet for dinner. It’s been ten years since the host, Robert, has seen his once-best friend, Mikko. The two had an ideological falling-out because Robert, a banker, made millions off of unethical (but not illegal) interest rate manipulation. Mikko, meanwhile, is an investigative journalist who has dedicated his career to bringing down corrupt financiers and politicians. Mikko’s wife, Veera—with whom Robert once had a secret affair—and Robert’s young trophy wife, Elise, are also joining the fray. Mikko has arrived in London with an agenda and thinks he’s about to get away with murder, but he has no idea what’s on the menu for the night: not only does every diner have a bone to pick with another, but there’s an arsenal of deadly weapons hiding in plain sight. And by the end of the night, there will only be one survivor.
|
|
|
Very Important Corpses : A Country House Murder Mystery With a Supernatural Twist
by Simon Green
The Organisation has despatched Ishmael and his partner Penny to Coronach House on the shores of Loch Ness where the secretive but highly influential Baphamet Group are holding their annual meeting. The Organisation believes an imposter has infiltrated the Group and they have instructed Ishmael to root him – or her – out. It’s not Ishmael’s only mission. The first agent sent by the Organisation has been found dead in her room, murdered in a horribly gruesome manner. Ishmael must also discover who killed his fellow agent, Jennifer Rifkin – and why. Dismissive of rumours that the legendary ‘Coronach Creature’ is behind Jennifer’s death, Ishmael sets out to expose the human killer in their midst. But he must act fast – before any more Very Important People are killed.
|
|
| The Hollow Men: A Novel by Rob McCarthyMystery. Juggling his jobs as a hospital physician and a London police surgeon, former Afghanistan army medic Dr. Harry Kent lives and breathes work (he gets by with minimal sleep and pharmaceutical help). Nevertheless, he adds a bit of detecting to his work load not long after he's called to an active police scene, where ill teenager Solomon Idris, who's coughing up blood, has taken hostages in a fast-food place. The hostage situation ends with an unnecessary bullet almost killing Idris, and after a medical mistake threatens Idris' life again, Kent wants to know who wants the hostage taker dead so badly that murder is an option...and what it all has to do with Idris' dead girlfriend. With some pulse-pounding moments and a tight plot, this debut by a UK medical student may please fans of medical thrillers. |
|
|
Snowblind : A Thriller
by Ragnar Jonasson
A U.S. debut from a best-selling European author follows the first posting of a rookie policeman in a peaceful Northern Iceland fishing village, where a suspicious injury and a murder reveal explosive local secrets.
|
|
|
What the Dead Leave Behind
by Rosemary Simpson
As the Great Blizzard of 1888 cripples the vast machinery that is New York City, heiress Prudence MacKenzie sits anxiously within her palatial Fifth Avenue home waiting for her fiancé’s safe return. But the fearsome storm rages through the night. With daylight, more than two hundred people are found to have perished in the icy winds and treacherous snowdrifts. Among them is Prudence’s fiancé—his body frozen, his head crushed by a heavy branch, his fingers clutching a single playing card, the ace of spades . . . Close on the heels of her father’s untimely demise, Prudence is convinced Charles’s death was no accident. The ace of spades was a code he shared with his school friend, Geoffrey Hunter, a former Pinkerton agent and attorney from the South and a former Pinkerton agent. Wary of sinister forces closing in on her, Prudence turns to Geoffrey as her only hope in solving a murder not all believe in—and to help protect her inheritance from a stepmother who seems more interested in the family fortune than Prudence’s well-being . . .
|
|
|
She stopped for death : a Little Library mystery
by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
When elusive and highly secretive poet, Emily Sutton, reemerges into society, making strange accusations, Jenny Weston and her quirky neighbor, almost famous author Zoe Zola, look further into the poet’s half-truths, which leads them to a horrible murder.
|
|
|
For time and all eternities
by Mette Ivie Harrison
When her son, Kenneth, gets engaged to Naomi Carter, a woman from a polygamous family, Mormon bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim and her husband, Kurt, arrive at the Carter compound to meet their future in-laws, only to be faced with murder, which shakes their faith and beliefs to the core. By the author of the national best-seller The Bishop's Wife
|
|
|
A death by any other name
by Tessa Arlen
The elegant Lady Montfort and her redoubtable housekeeper Mrs. Jackson's services are called upon after a cook is framed and dismissed for poisoning a guest of the Hyde Rose Society. Promising to help her regain her job and her dignity, the pair trek out to the countryside to investigate a murder of concealed passions and secret desires. There, they are to discover a villain of audacious cunning among a group of mild-mannered, amateur rose-breeders. While they investigate, the rumor mill fills with talk about a conflict over in Prussia where someone quite important was shot. There is talk of war and they must race the clock to solve the mystery as the idyllic English summer days count down to the start of WWI.
|
|
| Out of Bounds: A Karen Pirie Novel by Val McDermidMystery. A group of teen joyriders crash a stolen Land Rover; the driver ends up in a coma, but a routine DNA test reveals a link to a two-decade-old cold case. DCI Karen Pirie, head of Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit, hopes to spin this info into a conviction but things get complicated quickly. Meanwhile, she feels that a recent suicide is a murder and investigates, even though the case isn't hers, and on one of her insomniac night walks, she encounters Syrian refugees who need help. If after reading this 3rd outing for Pirie, you're looking for more gritty, suspenseful, and realistic novels featuring female police officers, try Jane Casey's London-set Maeve Kerrigan novels or Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series. |
|
| A Study in Scarlet Women: First in the Lady Sherlock Series by Sherry ThomasHistorical Mystery. Sherlock Holmes is a woman. Let us explain. In author Sherry Thomas' exhilarating take on the Holmes story, young Charlotte Holmes, facing social ruination, reinvents herself as a male detective, calling herself Sherlock. She's always been astute, and uses this to her advantage when Victorian London is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths, and suspicion falls on her sister and her father. Fans of Deanne Raybourn's romantic historical mysteries will appreciate the touches of romance and the Victorian London setting found here. Sherlockians who appreciate bold, new takes on the great detective should snap this up (for another Sherlock-inspired novel, pick up Joe Ide's recent debut, the excellent South Central Los Angeles-set IQ). |
|
|
Dead and Breakfast
by Kate Kingsbury
Melanie West is getting her life back on track after a messy divorce when her grandmother, Liza Harris, asks her to open a B&B with her. Together, Liza and Melanie purchase a purportedly haunted mansion on the Oregon coast and jump right into clearing out the cobwebs. But while attempting to remove wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom, the new B&B owners stumble upon a very real skeleton in their closet. The police suspect the skeleton is that of the wife of the previous owner of the B&B, but no one in town seems to want to say much about her. As the inn owners try to juggle renovations with their own amateur investigations, their grand opening looms closer and closer--and a friendly ghost in their walls starts playing tricks. But it all comes crashing to a halt when a new body is found stabbed to death on the beach below the inn--the victim chillingly close in resemblance to Melanie herself. It seems someone doesn't appreciate newcomers prying into the small town's past, and now it's up to Melanie and Liza to get to the bottom of these murders to save their business...and their lives.
|
|
| Dodgers: A Novel by William BeverlyCrime Fiction. East, a Los Angeles gang member who works as a lookout, is only 16 when he's sent to Wisconsin as part of a group to kill a witness hiding out there. Along with three other teens (including his younger brother), he traverses an entirely alien America, where as young black men they stand out far more than they did in L.A. Observant and cautious, East is a complex character, one who is good at what he does but not entirely hardened by his life. Recommended for fans of Richard Price, this debut is a "searing novel about crime, race, and coming-of-age" (Booklist). |
|
| The Life We Bury: A Novel by Allen EskensMystery. Minnesota college freshman Joe Talbert has been assigned to write a biography of a stranger. He's chosen Carl Iverson, jailed for 30 years for rape and murder, now dying of pancreatic cancer and living in a nearby nursing home. The more Joe comes to know Carl (a hero in Vietnam) the harder it is for him to believe that he's guilty of the crimes for which he was imprisoned. Along with Lila, a neighbor and fellow college student, and later, police detective Max Rupert, Joe searches for the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by his needy, alcoholic mother, his responsibilities as caregiver to his 18-year-old autistic brother, and a dangerous someone who doesn't want him digging up the past. This finalist for the 2015 ITW Best First Novel award is the 1st in a series featuring Max Rupert that now numbers three. |
|
| A Murder of Magpies by Judith FlandersMystery. Wry, likable middle-aged London book editor Samantha "Sam" Clair is visited by Inspector Fields, CID; a courier has been killed and all of his packages taken, including one for Sam. At first, Sam has no idea what might have been in the delivery, but when gossipy author Kit Lowell goes missing after her scandalous new manuscript indicates a Spanish fashion designer was murdered, Sam has an idea. This propels her into a criminal investigation where she discovers that someone will stop at nothing, not even murder, to see that Kit's latest does not get published. This witty, funny debut novel, the 1st in a series, features entertaining characters and an insider's look at the publishing world. |
|
| Murder at the Brightwell: A Mystery by Ashley WeaverHistorical Mystery. In 1932 England, while her playboy husband Milo swans around Europe, unhappily married Amory Ames helps her friend and ex-fiancé, Gil, in an effort to save his sister from a similar fate (the young woman's beau reminds Amory a lot of Milo). Staying at the Brightwell Hotel, near Brighton, with Gil, his sister, her fiancé, and others, Amory's shocked when a member of the group is murdered, and Gil is accused. She investigates to save her friend, and her husband, surprisingly, shows up to help. With a nicely evoked 1930s setting and droll humor, this stylish first novel (and 1st in a series) should please fans of Golden Age writers and romantic comedies. |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|