Mystery
March 2017
"It is, tragically, still illegal to force people to buy books at gunpoint. I don't know why this kind of restriction is allowed to remain on the statue books." 
~ from Judith Flanders' A Cast of Vultures
 
Recent Releases
In this grave hour
by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs is plunged into a treacherous personal battle when she stumbles on the deaths of refugees who may not be who they seem against a backdrop of the outbreak of World War II in England. By the best-selling author of Journey to Munich.
All the little liars
by Charlaine Harris

When four kids including her brother go missing from school and a dead body is found where they were last seen, a pregnant Aurora organizes a personal investigation that exposes the activities of a gang of bullies and her brother's gambling debts. By the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series.
Bone box : a Decker/Lazarus novel
by Faye Kellerman

When Rina Lazarus makes a shocking discovery in the woods near her upstate New York community, her husband, police detective Peter Decker, becomes embroiled in a series of gruesome, decades-old unsolved murders. 100,000 first printing.
Gold of Our Fathers
by Kwei Quartey

Darko Dawson returns in Kewi Quartey's atmospheric crime series. Gold of Our Fathers sees him promoted to Chief Inspector in the Ghana Police Service. But he doesn't have long to celebrate, because his new boss is transferring him from Accra, Ghana's capital, out to remote Obuasi in the Ashanti region, an area now notorious for the illegal exploitation of its gold mines. On his second day, he finds the body of a Chinese mine owner in his own gold quarry. Dawson quickly learns that the offenders here have more money than fear of the law.
If You Like: Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs
Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mysteries feature a World War I nurse turned London PI and psychologist. Although she began her life as a workingman's daughter, teenage Maisie received a Cambridge education after her unconventional upper-class employer saw her intellectual abilities. In 1929, compassionate Maisie takes up a former mentor's practice of solving mysteries using both psychology and crime investigation techniques. Maisie's vividly described adventures begin in Maisie Dobbs, and readers who haven't encountered her before should start here; fans waiting for her 13th and most recent outing, In this Grave Hour, which comes out this month, may want to check out the following books.
 
Her royal spyness
by Rhys Bowen

A penniless twenty-something member of the extended British royal family, Lady Victoria, the daughter of the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch, puts her sleuthing talents to work when an arrogant Frenchman, who is determined to gain control of her family's eight-hundred-year-old estate for himself, ends up dead in her bathtub. By the author of Evan Blessed.
The Moor: A Mary Russell Novel
by Laurie R. King

Historical Mystery. In Dartmoor, 20 years after Sherlock Holmes' famous Baskerville case, a ghostly carriage and dog have been seen by more than one person...and a murder has occurred. Called to investigate by his ill, elderly friend Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, Holmes and his redoubtable young wife Mary Russell stay at Baring-Gould's fascinating house, tramp over the moors, talk with locals, and meet the new owner of Baskerville Hall as they puzzle out the complicated truth. Highly intelligent, courageous, and working during and after World War I, Mary Russell has much in common with Maisie Dobbs; also, like Maisie, Mary was apprenticed to an older and more experienced detective who taught her his methods. The Moor is the 4th in an excellent series; readers who haven't read the 1st, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, may want to start there. 
Murder in the Afternoon: A Kate Shackleton Mystery
by Frances Brody

Cozy Historical. When a young girl and her little brother sneak away from home to visit their stonemason dad at work, they find his corpse. They tell an adult, but when the authorities arrive, the body is gone. Their worried mother, Mary Jane, calls on PI Kate Shackleton and asks for help...and tells Kate that they are sisters. Adoptee Kate sets aside news about her biological family and investigates, but soon has a growing suspicion that Mary Jane is harboring a dangerous secret. Fans of post-World War I mysteries set in the United Kingdom and featuring complex characters, such as those by Jacqueline Winspear, will want to try the Kate Shackleton series. This 3rd entry was chosen by Library Journal as one of its five best mysteries for 2014; the 7th in the series, A Death in the Dales, was released in the U.S. last month. 
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Bellwood Public Library
600 Bohland Avenue
Bellwood, Illinois 60104
(708)547-7393

www.bellwoodlibrary.org