Marilyn's Mystery Reads

It’s been thirteen years since Jimmy Baker’s career went from outstanding minor league hockey player to driver of a Zamboni machine.  Quick to anger, almost uncontrollably so at times, Jimmy had deliberately crashed into Corey Richards, a member of the opposing team.  That left Richards in a wheelchair, where he remains to this day, and it ended Jimmy’s career that same night.

Jimmy hasn’t laced up his skates since then.  Instead he’s resigned to driving Zelda, as he calls the Zamboni, and takes great pride in keeping the ice in the best condition possible for the IceKings.  The machine, and the ice rink, is owned by the Payne family, the richest one in Bitterfrost, Michigan, the family now consisting of Eleanor, the family matriarch; son Evan, the manager of the rink; and Devyn, an attorney and fanatic amateur hockey player herself.

When the novel opens Jimmy wakes, trying to remember just what happened the night before.  He knows he was in the Lost Loon Tavern, but what occurred between the time he left there and woke in his bed is a mystery.  However, given the fact that he’s still wearing his team jacket and his face has dried blood on it, it can’t be anything good.

In addition to Jimmy’s fall from grace, Bitterfrost has more unpleasant history.  There is a long-simmering feud between the Paynes and the Dulaneys.  Butch Delaney and his two younger brothers are always spoiling for a fight, and their prime targets are Jimmy and Devyn.  Then there’s the trial that had Devyn defending an accused murderer, getting him off, only to find out that he was guilty not only of that crime but others as well.  Although she was only doing her job, her relations with Bitterfrost Detective Garth Klimmek, who was in charge of the bungled police investigation, is still tense.

The Michigan State Police receive a call of an abandoned vehicle just inside the borders of Bitterfrost, and when they investigate they find what appears to be blood inside the auto.  They call Klimmek to advise him of the accident, and moments later a policeman enters Klimmek’s office to tell him that a body has been found, not at the scene but not too far away.  The detective begins a search of the surrounding area that takes him to Jimmy’s house where he notices what appear to be drops of blood on the front porch.  He interviews Jimmy, noticing the man’s bruised and swollen face, and after the interview is over Jimmy calls Devyn to represent him.

Devyn is also representing Jordan Fawcett, a woman with a long record of drinking and brawling.  Not for the first time Jordan disregards Devyn’s advice; instead of staying put and appearing in court she leaves town.  That turns out to be a fatal mistake.

Bryan Gruley has written a fascinating novel about life in a small, sport-obsessed town.  Memories are long in Bitterfrost, and grudges and hurts are never forgotten.  Advance publicity announces that this is the first novel in a series featuring Devyn Payne, and I am definitely looking forward to the second one. 

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novel.

Mystery readers know that it’s never a good idea for friends to get together for a reunion years after they’ve gone their separate ways.  No matter how strong the bonds were years earlier, too much has happened since then for the get-together to be successful.

A case in point is when six college friends meet sixteen years after graduation.  Well, it was graduation for five of the six, but that information comes later.

Alfred Smettle is now the owner of the Hitchcock Hotel, a rather grotesque mansion in the same New Hampshire town where the group attended Reville College.  He’s invited the five college friends he was closest to for a weekend at the Hotel as his guests.  During their times at Reville, all six were interested in cinema, none more so than Alfred.

You might almost call him a fanatic about classic films, Alfred Hitchcock’s in particular, and thus when the mansion goes up for sale following the deaths of its owners, he uses all his inheritance to purchase it.  It’s filled with every type of memorabilia relating to the famed director–original movie posters, scripts of his films, a screening room that plays the director’s films twenty-four hours a day, the typewriter Psycho was written on, and the black phone used by Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder.

Now the group from college–Zoe, T. J., Julius, Samira, and Grace–arrives, bringing their issues and problems with them.  Zoe was a renowned chef until her drinking got out of control; T. J. works as security for a Washington politician, but now he is being threatened and stalked; Julius is the heir to a family fortune who has never felt his own worth; Samira is dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and the possible dissolution of her marriage; and Grace is carrying on an affair that’s purely sexual on her part but much more meaningful to the man involved.  Why has Alfred brought them together after all these years?

The six had met in the cinema course led by Professor Jerome Scott.  They all enjoyed the class but none with the fervor of Albert.  Yet it is this course, and this professor, that proved to be Albert’s downfall and years later the reason for the reunion at the Hitchcock Hotel.

Smettle has given his entire staff the weekend off except for his housekeeper Danny, who will cook for the group during their stay.  Now it’s the six of them plus Danny in the house, and all the tensions from their college years reemerge.

Stephanie Wrobel has cleverly intertwined the familiar trope of a group of people secluded from the rest of the world with one man’s obsession with recreating the make-believe world of his cinematic hero.  Her characters and their problems are real, as is the protagonist’s delusion that bringing the group together will right the wrong done to him years earlier.  You can read more about Stephanie Wrobel at this website.

The latest entry in the Molly Murphy series, Silent as the Grave, gives its readers not only an excellent mystery but a close look into the beginning of the motion picture industry in New York City.  The book is set in 1909, and we enter the Biograph Studio of D. W. Griffith along with Molly to learn how magical the making of movies is to those outside the new industry.

Before she married Detective Daniel Sullivan of the New York City Police Department (of which my own father was a captain many years after this novel takes place), Molly ran her own investigative agency.  Now the mother of two young children she no longer has that business, but crime still seems to follow her.

When her friend Ryan O’Hare comes to the States for a visit, Molly learns that the celebrated playwright is interested in the new medium of silent movies.  He has written a screenplay for Griffith, and the movie is being filmed not far from the Sullivans’ home.  Since it’s school vacation week, Molly takes her daughter Bridie to the Biograph location to view the production, and Bridie, to her unutterable delight, is given a small part in the film.

The studio is financed by identical twin brothers, Harry and Arthur Martin.  Harry has just become engaged to Fanny Prince, whose late husband was an inventor involved with his father in the creation of the first motion picture camera.  Sadly, both men died in accidents, but Fanny is still interested in films.

Accidents have plagued Biograph since production began, and Molly is witness to one as she watches a scene being filmed–a huge lamp falls into the water tank, narrowly missing the future star Mary Pickford.  There always seems to be a rational explanation of the causes, but Griffith is furious.  “I’ve had enough of accidents in this studio,” he bellows to the crew.  “I’ll fire the next person who doesn’t do his job properly.”  Nevertheless, the incidents continue, including one that comes close to taking Bridie’s life.

Equally as interesting as the plot is the way the authors, who are mother and daughter, seamlessly weave the history of the beginning of motion pictures into the story.  I learned several details about this history in the book including that at the very beginning, there was no script for the actors to follow; the names of the cast and crew, as well as the screenwriter, didn’t appear in any credits; even though the films were “silents,” actors had to face the camera so the audience could read their lips as well as read the dialogue and narrative text on what were called “inter-titles” or cards with the words that the actors were saying on them; Thomas Edison and Griffith were locked in a series of bitter off-and-on battles over the new industry’s technology.  The idea of Technicolor films with voices that could be heard by theater audiences was barely a dream.

Molly is a wonderful character, as is the supporting cast of her husband Daniel, their three children, and her close friends Gus and Sid.   And the casual disregard of women in the new industry and the lack of recognition of their abilities strike an all-too-familiar chord even today.

You can read more about Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles at their respective websites:   https://rhysbowen.com/ and https://www.clarebroyles.com/.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Wow, I said aloud when I finished reading The Queen of Fives.  This fascinating mystery provides a close look into an incredible confidence scam in the closing years of 19th-century England.

The Fives refers to the rules of such a scheme.  When the rules are followed and conducted by a skilled operator, the results are foregone.  Rule I – The Mark (or quarry); Rule II – The Intrusion (the con artist enters the mark’s world); Rule III – The Ballyhoo (the opportunity to make a fortune or something else the mark desires is presented); Rule IV – The Knot (the web encloses the quarry); Rule V – All In (the trap is sprung and succeeds).

As long as there have been unscrupulous people, and there always have been such, and as long as there are people either too gullible or too greedy for their own good, and they always have existed as well, there have been con games.

As we are all aware, they currently flourish via email, texts, social media, and telephone–remember the Nigerian prince scam of several decades ago or the more current “I’d like to be your friend” on Facebook?

When we look back at them in the cold light of day, we wonder who could possibly be taken in by such trickery?  The answer is–it could be you (or me).

In a humble house in the run-down section of London called Spitafields, a skilled group of people have made their living for years tricking others out of their savings.  But now times are hard, and the group, led by its leader Quinn LcBlanc and her assistant Mr. Silk, are preparing for their most daring game ever.  They are teetering on the verge of insolvency, and they need to reel in a mark with very deep pockets.

What better candidate than His Grace the Duke of Kendal?  

There are three members of the House of Kendal–the Duke himself, just turning thirty; his sister Victoria; and their stepmother, the Dowager Dutchess.  The  Kendal parents are both deceased, but their late father’s second wife has long been a loving figure to her two stepchildren.  However, now there is tension in the family that didn’t exist previously, and the servants are kept busy running up and down the mansion’s stairs delivering notes from one family member to another rather than the various members simply knocking on the others’ doors as they had done in the past.

Into this small circle Quinn enters in the persona of Quinta White, a young woman presenting herself as a wealthy heiress with the backing of another con artist, Mrs. Airlie, as her chaperone.  Quinn’s first step is to gain admission to Buckingham Palace and to use the opportunity to meet the Duke.  The first and the second rules succeed, but the others may prove more difficult.

There are surprises and betrayals in store for both Quinn and the Duke, with twists and turns that necessitate both parties maneuvering to keep control of their secrets and goals.  Equally important, how much can each trust the other?

Alex Hay has written a masterful mystery.  Both Quinn and the Duke, as well as the many other characters in the book, are wonderfully portrayed, and the customs, venues, and soirees of 1895 London are made vivid.  The Queen of Fives is a novel to be savored.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

I was hooked from the first pages of Last Act of All in which a woman who has confessed to killing her former husband is about to released from prison.  Her sentence was for nine months, as she was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, and there is sympathy for her since the members of the jury and the judge know Neville Fielding for the evil man he was.  Helena Fielding refuses to explain her actions despite the pleas of her barrister; he assures her that an explanation of the truth would almost certainly result in no prison time at all, but she remains adamant.

The novel takes place in the present and in flashbacks.  Helena and Neville meet as young actors, each recognizing the other’s talent and charisma.  In addition to those qualities, however, they also bring memories of their unhappy childhoods–Helena, brought up by a controlling and strict father after her mother’s death when she was twelve; Neville, who had changed his name from Norman Smith to sound more aristocratic, was an abandoned child who spent his childhood in an orphanage.  Both want to expunge their pasts and start anew, but of course it’s never that easy.

Although they both have early success, it is Neville who is determined to climb to the top of the entertainment ladder; somehow Helena is pushed to the back of the stage.  Then he leaves the theater for television and soon becomes “Badman” Harry Bradman, the protagonist everyone loves to hate, and the series becomes the most popular one in Britain.  With each season Neville becomes more like Harry, nasty and controlling to Helena while showing only his charming persona to most of the outside world.

Neville’s latest obsession, aside from his non-stop affairs, is to live in the remote town of Radnesfield, “a mean huddle of Fifties council houses” in the house that he buys without Helena’s input.  When she sees it she calls it an “unspeakable monstrosity,” but her husband, not surprisingly, disregards her feelings.  He is delighted with it, its disreputable state somehow just what he wants.  He manages to bring all his bad qualities to the town, making enemies of nearly all the men while sleeping with their wives, until finally Helena has enough and leaves him, returning to London.  They divorce shortly after.

The trope of a small town with an unpopular outsider who manages to enrage nearly the entire population is a familiar one, but this mystery succeeds in creating an original narrative filled with believable characters.  Even Neville, whom readers will agree receives his just desserts, provokes a sliver of sympathy.  And Helena’s false confession is totally believable given the circumstances surrounding her.

Aline Templeton wrote this outstanding mystery in 1996, and I’m sorry it took me so long to discover it.  You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

When Detective Casey Duncan and her husband Sheriff Eric Dalton founded Haven’s Rock as a place of sanctuary deep in the Yukon forest, they hoped to improve upon Rockton, the place where they met years earlier.  Rockton had also been envisioned as a place of safety for those wanting to leave their horrific pasts behind, but over the years things there had changed, and it was no longer fulfilling that need.

Thus Casey and Eric, with the financial help of an heiress who supports their project, established Haven’s Rock.  Now a town of sixty-seven adults and two children, Haven’s Rock is even more remote than Rockton, and it has the additional benefit of virtually unlimited financial resources.  But it still has dangers from its residents, carefully vetted as they are.

Casey and Eric are awakened shortly after midnight by Sebastian, a member of the community.  He tells them that Kendra, another resident, was attacked and dragged into the forest but managed to escape her assailant.  Kendra tells Casey that she had two drinks at the Roc, the town’s only restaurant, one over her usual limit, and that on her way home she felt dizzy and tipsy. She was trying to put her key in her front door when she was hit twice from behind and dragged through the snow into the woods.  Sebastian heard her screams, found her, and carried her back to the settlement.

The consensus is that Kendra’s drink was drugged, and it is pure luck that she was rescued.  Now Casey and Eric must find the assailant before he/she strikes again.  Finding the person who put something in Kendra’s drink is made more difficult by the fact that she was sitting with two other women at the Roc, and their drinks had been left on the bar’s counter for a minute or two before being taken to their table.  Was Kendra the intended recipient of the doctored drink, or was it really meant for one of the other women?

Then there’s a second assault, this one deadly.  Another woman is taken into the forest, stripped naked, and staked in the snow, and the presumption is that her attacker watched her suffer and die.  In this small community, how could such a person have escaped the vigilance of the committee screening prospective entrants as well as the people living in Haven’s Rock?

An additional complicating factor is Casey’s pregnancy.  She and Eric are delighted about having a child, but at the moment it’s complicating her ability to investigate the crimes.  Much as she doesn’t want to admit it, now that she’s in her eighth month she’s more tired than usual and her mobility is definitely compromised.  Her husband is watchful, perhaps more than she would like, because they are hundreds of miles away from the nearest hospital.  April, Casey’s sister, is Haven’s Rock physician, but April is a neurosurgeon, not an obstetrician.

Cold As Hell is the third volume in the Rockton series.  It continues the stories of multiple characters in the village, but such is Ms. Armstrong’s talent that even those readers who have not read the earlier two novels will have no trouble following the plot.  The characters are realistic, Casey and Eric are a delightful and strong couple, and the plot is scarily believable.

You can read more about the author at this website.

This month marks fifteen years since I started my weekly mystery blog.  I’ve reviewed over 700 books and have written pieces about current releases, Past Masters, Golden Oldies, and my opinions of various aspects of mysteries under the title About Marilyn, which you are reading right now.  I’ve enjoyed every minute of writing.

One of the things I like to do is to let readers know about another interest of mine.  I’ve been attending wonderful classes on topics including music, art, and history for more than twenty years at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) and have been teaching courses on mystery fiction there for more than a dozen years on topics including “Murder in Massachusetts,” “Murder She Wrote,” and “Historical Mysteries.”

My spring semester course, which starts next month, is entitled WHODUNIT?:  A STUDY IN SIDEKICKS.  Anyone who has read the Sherlock Holmes stories certainly understands the importance of sidekicks.  But what exactly is their role?  Since not every thriller or detective novel has a sidekick, why do some authors incorporate them into the plot and others don’t?

Is the sidekick there to provide assistance to the detective, to give the reader a look into the investigative process, to add humor to the narrative, and/or to have someone in the novel who is willing to do what the protagonist can’t or won’t do?  Finally, what is the importance of the sidekick in each mystery that we’ll be reading, and how would be story be different without him/her?

Here is the booklist for this term:  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I Know a Secret by Tess Gerritsen, The Wanted by Robert Crais, A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane, Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson, Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee, Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas, and Ghost Hero by S. J. Rozan.  We’ll start in the Victorian period and end in today’s era, and we’ll be moving from England to India to the United States.

I invite you to read along with us and think about the questions I posed above.  I promise you truly excellent reading.

Best,

Marilyn

Mercury Carter is an independent mail carrier, like a delivery man from UPS or Amazon except that he works for himself.  It doesn’t sound as if that’s something that would put him in danger until he has to make a delivery to attorney Rachel Stanfield.  Merc’s motto is Rules are Rules, and thus begins the novel that changes lives.

Rachel and her husband Glenn are in the midst of an argument, although neither is quite certain what they’re fighting about, when their back door opens and four masked men enter their house.  A moment later the couple is sitting on their couch, with their hands zip tied behind their backs, guns pointing at them.

Glenn doesn’t know what the men are there for, but Rachel does.  The leader of the group, Finn, waylaid her two days earlier, demanding that she give him a document he wants.  She explains that she can’t do that legally, that it hasn’t been filed and thus she can’t release it, but Finn doesn’t care about the legalities.

Now in her home he tells her,”You have sixty seconds to produce the document or we’re going to remove your husband’s fingers,” pointing to a man holding a pair of pruning shears.  Even after Rachel gives Finn the document, he wants more.  He wants the address of a woman named Stella Wolford, but Rachel denies knowing anything about her or where she can be found.

Glenn offers the leader of the group money, millions he says, and Rachel looks at her husband in disbelief.  Finn is interested, and it’s obvious that his new plan is to get Glenn’s banking information and then kill the couple.  He herds them to the basement, and at that moment the doorbell rings.

It’s Merc Carter, with his delivery for Rachel, and he is politely insistent that it must be delivered into her hands only.  Finn is annoyed, saying Rachel isn’t home and he doesn’t know when she’ll return, but Merc doesn’t relent.  He agrees to wait in his car, but Finn is not pleased with that.  He tells Stone, one of his gang, to “go ahead and handle it,” and he attempts to do as he’s told and heads outside.

As Stone tries to force the mail carrier to leave his car, he receives a face full of Mace from Carter.  The next thing he knows, he’s zip tied and gagged.  He’s still able to answer Merc’s questions by nodding, and Merc learns that there are three other gang members in the house, that Rachel is still alive, and that her husband is with her.  Now the mailman is prepared.

Carter had been a member of the Postal Inspection Service, and its members carry guns and have the power to arrest suspects.  After a number of years in the PIS, two traumatic events changed the course of his life.  Now Merc is forced to use the skills he learned in the Service, skills he thought he’d never need again.

The MailMan is an exciting, outstanding novel which I hope is the first in a series.  Its plot will keep you turning pages, and all its characters are utterly believable, from Rachel and Glenn and Glenn’s daughter Abby to the unsavory Finn and the mystery man he’s working for.

You can read more about Andrew Welsh-Huggins at this website.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick (Dez to his friends) is back.  He’s a “gatekeeper,” which means he has the ability to enter any locked/secured facility, a skill he learned in the British military.  Even though he’s now retired, his gatekeeping skills are still coming in handy, along with the many other abilities he possesses.

As Chain Reaction opens, Dez and Mr. Jamison, the latter a member of the British espionage establishment, are in Spain to purchase, for an unbelievably large sum, a formula for synthetic opioids that has no addictive qualities, developed by a Spanish chemist.  Within seconds of their entering the chemist’s lab Dez realizes that it’s all a sham.  The professor is no more Spanish than Dez is, and the formula he shows Dez and Jamison is that of the atomic structure of caffeine.

Then a group of gangsters tries to enter the lab, but thanks to Dez’s skills they don’t have a chance.  He has boobytrapped the door leading to the lab, messing with the electronic locking device on the door and using liquid nitrogen that he puts together, wounding the men as they attempt to force their way in.

The alleged professor and his assistant lead Limerick and Jamison out of the building, leaving behind the wounded gang members of the cartel who were there to stop the sale they believed would end their lucrative drug trade.  And when Dez and Jamison turn around, the two con artists have disappeared.

The time and place shift, and it’s eighteen months later in New York City.  A day earlier Dez had received a text supposedly from his friend and former bandmate Kansas Jack, asking if he can substitute for an ailing guitar player the following evening at a performance in Manhattan.  Dez is delighted to accept and takes the next flight to New York City.  The room reserved for him is at one of the hotels inside the brand-new Liberty Convention Center in Newark, New Jersey.

Before meeting Kansas Jack, Dez walks around the Center and becomes aware of several pairs of military men trying to fit into the crowds of tourists in the hotel’s lobby.  They’re dressed in civilian clothes, but to a former military man such as Dez it’s obvious what they are.  As he’s deciding what to make of this, a young woman comes over to his table.  It’s Catalina Valdivia, known professionally as Cat, the “professor’s assistant” from Madrid.

As they reconnect in a martini bar in the Center, Limerick tells Cat his suspicions about the men he’s seen walking around.  Are they robbers, Cat asks?  Could they be terrorists?  Less than a minute later they hear the first of three almost simultaneous explosions; the thousands of people inside the Center are at risk.  Dez immediately works out a plan to thwart the terrorists or robbers, whomever they are, and the loss of innocent lives is averted.  The ones who planted the bombs are not so lucky, however.

Dez then meets with his friend Kansas Jack and learns that the text asking him to come to New York did not come from him.  Obviously someone wants him in Manhattan, and Dez believes he knows who.  Now Dez, Cat, and FBI hostage negotiator Stella Ansara are working together to get the hostages safely out of the Liberty Hotel, uncover those behind the takeover, and learn the reason that Limerick was lured to the city.

Chain Reaction successfully continues the spellbinding adventures of Dez Limerick.  As in the two previous novels, Gatekeeper and Deadlock, Dez is a compelling character, and his abilities and charisma will keep you reading until the final page.  James Byrne has done it again.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Five college friends.  A weekend at the cliffside vacation home belonging to one of them.  Spouses and significant others are invited.  A secret that has haunted some of them over the years.  What could go wrong?

The timeline of The Weekend Guests is from 2001 to 2019.  The story is told by various characters, most, but not all, of whom are present on this weekend.  The first voice is Brandon’s, the reluctant owner of the spectacular home that is the site of the reunion.  He and his wife, Aline, are the hosts, he unenthusiastically, she with unbridled delight.  Aline, with her extraordinary beauty, unlimited money, and compelling personality, has brought the group together for the first time in many years.  And she has a reason.

She, Rob, and Michael were students together in Edinburgh, and Sienna, a visiting American, was part of that group for several months.  Brandon, another American, came into the group a bit later.  And there are two other women–Nikki, Michael’s wife, and Cass, Rob’s latest and temporary significant other–who are there for the weekend.  Finally there’s Milly, a student at the London School of Economics and Aline’s temporary nanny; she will be taking care of Aline and Brandon’s two children and Sienna’s two girls.

We start learning about the initial group–Aline, Rob, and Michael–from the journals of Darryl, a graduate student at the university who is struggling both with his dissertation and his life.  Darryl is watching as the three undergrads move into the flat across the hall from him.  The statement he writes, “They will not change my life,” may be one of the most inaccurate statements in literature.

Desperately lonely, Darryl reconsiders his first thought and decides he wants nothing more than to be friends with these students.  He and Rob start a weekly chess game, but as Darryl becomes more erratic in his behavior, Rob pulls away until finally there are no more games or invitations to join any get-togethers.  That loss affects Darryl profoundly, eventually impacting on his unrequited fixation on his dissertation advisor.  He is a lonely, broken soul with a tragic backstory.

There are many strands tying the guests together, most of them twisted.  Aline and Brandon’s marriage is not the perfect one it seems on the surface.  Michael and Nikki are dealing with economic problems and a nursing baby who will not stop crying.  Rob’s latest girlfriend, Cass, is obviously ill-at-ease with his friends, and Sienna, his former lover, adds even more tension to the scene simply by being there.

In addition, the weather plays a major part in the novel, with Aline using all of her guile and powers of persuasion, urging the group to go on dangerous hikes regardless of the rain, thunder, and lightning that is present every day.

The trope of a small group of people together in a remote spot is a familiar one, but Liza North has made it her own with insightful writing, a brilliant plot, and an ending that took me totally by surprise.  This novel will make you think twice before accepting invitations from long-ago friends.

You can read more about the author at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Imagine yourself on a plane from Hobart to Sydney, Australia.  You are sitting quietly, perhaps reading a book or watching the small screen on the back of the seat in front of you.  Suddenly a middle aged woman begins walking down the narrow aisle, pausing for a few moments at each row, saying something, and then moving on.  At first nothing seems amiss, but after she stops several times there’s a stir in the air as if something unpleasant is happening.

It takes a few minutes for people to realize the situation.  The woman is talking at the passengers, not to them.  As she moves down the aisle, people begin to understand her words.  “I expect catastrophic stroke.  Age seventy-two.”  “Heart disease.  Age eight-four.”  “Workplace accident.  Age forty-three.”  “Drowning.  Age seven.”

The woman making these predictions, later to become known as the “Death Lady,” had boarded the plane quietly, nobody noticing her.  But she and several of the travelers whose futures she predicts would shortly be known all over the country.

The passengers to whom the woman speaks react differently.  Not surprisingly, the ones whose deaths were predicted at more advanced ages were not unduly upset.  Eighty-four.  Ninety-three. Ninety-five.  Those predictions were okay.  But thirty-seven.  Forty-three.  Seven.  Not okay.

The flight attendants, all of whom are busy with unrelated tasks, aren’t aware of exactly what’s going on, but finally the cabin manager Alexa is alerted and is able to lead the woman back to her seat.  Her final comment is directed to Alexa.  “I expect self-harm—age…age..twenty-eight.”

The talking among the passengers continues until the plane lands.  There is a lot of conversation about psychic powers, their reliability or lack thereof.  But then the first death occurs, exactly as predicted, followed by two more.  It’s scary.

The novel is told in various voices.  We hear from Alexa; Ethan, a passenger who is told he will die at thirty (he’s twenty-nine); Paula, a young mother whose son is predicted to die by drowning at age seven; and several others.  We note their reactions to the predictions and wonder, what would we do in that situation?

We also hear from the woman who has become notorious.  Although she doesn’t say more to each individual than their age of death and the cause, she observes, “Fate won’t be fought,” which is hardly comforting for those whose death date is sooner rather than later.

Here One Moment, as well as being an outstanding mystery, is a novel that is truly thought-provoking.  It raises at least two questions.  First, do you believe in prophesies?  Second, if you do, how would you try to avoid yours, assuming it told of your early or imminent death?  Would you give up your favorite hobby, rock climbing, if you were told you’d die in a fall?  Would you never go in the water if it were foretold that you would drown?  Or would you dismiss the predictions and proceed with your life as if you’d never been told the date and manner of your demise?

Liane Moriarty continues her streak of excellent thrillers, novels with excellent plots and characters you care about.  You can read more about her at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

The protagonist of Death in the Air, Ro Krishna, is the American-born son of Tamil parents.  He spent most of his life in the United States, then moved to England where he received a law degree at Oxford, and since then has traveled widely in Europe, becoming fluent in French and German.  In other words, he’s a cultured man.

As the novel opens, Ro has just lost his position at an international firm.  His boss had been speaking against him behind his back and took all the credit for his work.  He’s not worried about his financial status, but he’s upset and hurt nevertheless.

Almost on the spur of the moment, he decides to go to the world-famous Samsara Spa at the foot of the Himalayas to relax, unwind, and revitalize his body and mind.  It’s located in Rishikesh, where the Beatles studied transcendental meditation.

As it turns out, several of Ro’s friends and acquaintances will be at the spa also.  Like Ro, they are all super-wealthy, worldly, and sophisticated.  They are also very quick with cutting remarks.  Celebrating Ro’s birthday shortly before he leaves for India, one woman asks Amrita, who will play a major part in the novel, about a party she attended.  “It was a great party, if you’d never been to a party before,” Amrita responds.  Ouch!

Among the guests at Samsara are Ro’s friend Joss, a theatrical agent; Chris, the movie star he represents; Chris’ wife Catherine, formerly a diplomat; Mrs. Banerjee, the grande dame who runs the hotel; Makesh, a valued staff member specializing in yoga and meditation; and Amir, another visitor.

Amrita and Ro spend much of the first day talking and discovering a bit about each other, but at dinner she’s obviously upset.  She tells him she’s lost her watch, which had belonged to her mother, and Ro tries to reassure her, saying he’s sure it will turn up.  Then, while they’re eating, Amrita is called away from the table to take a phone call, and when she returns she’s smiling.  Her watch has been found, she is told over the phone, and she decides she’ll pick it up at Reception immediately.

After dinner, Ro and several of his friends decide to do some star-gazing. He and Lala, another guest, go to the laundry room to pick up blankets for the group to lie on.  Hands full, they return to the grounds, Lala in the lead, when suddenly she begins to scream.  In front of them on the grass is Amrita’s corpse.

No one appears to have a motive to murder Amrita, but hers will not be the only murder at the spa.  And the others will appear to be motiveless as well.

Ram Murali has written a wonderful first novel.  Its setting in the Himalayas is both beautiful and remote, and the guests are definitely living the lives of “the other half.”  The dialog is clever and often sarcastic, although never to the victim’s face, only behind their back.  Perhaps that goes with being in the top one percent.

Still, that being said and multiple murders notwithstanding, if someone would like to invite me to spend a week at the Samsara Spa, I’m game!

You can read more about the author at this website.

These days everyone wants to be famous.  Not for developing a vaccine to fight a pandemic sweeping the world or for writing a novel that wins the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  Honestly, anyone can do those things.

No, people want to be famous as an Influencer, someone with thousands, if not millions, of followers on TikTok or Instagram.  And the people with rather small followings but who believe they should have thousands more are very vulnerable to an agency promising that they can make that happen.

Rosie D’Antonio doesn’t need an agency to bump up her profile.  She’s a best-selling author and a noted media personality.  But she does need a bodyguard because a character in one of her books is obviously based on Vasiliy Karpin, a Russian billionaire, and he took exception to the way he was portrayed and has twice attempted to kill Rosie. 

That’s why she and Amy Wheeler, a bodyguard who works for Maximum Impact Solutions, are on Rosie’s private island in the waters off South Carolina.  Until MIS can neutralize this threat, Amy and Rosie need to stay out of the public eye.

Jeff Nolan, CEO of MIS, is clearly taking no chances with Rosie’s safety.  He has already “lost” three influencer clients to unexplained deaths, and he certainly doesn’t want to lose any more.  He’s not in doubt about who is behind these deaths.  It’s François Lubet, a former client and money-smuggler, and Jeff is writing to him to let him know that he will take steps to stop this threat to his business if Loubet doesn’t cease and desist.  But who is François Lubet?

As it happens, in each case where a client was murdered, Amy Wheeler was in the vicinity.  Now her father-in-law Steve wants to talk to her about the latest murder victim, Andrew Fairchild.  Andrew was just beginning his career as an influencer when his body was found.  He’d been shot, tied to a rope, and thrown from a boat into the Atlantic.

Jeff wants Amy to come back to London to help him solve these murders, and she’s about to leave Rosie on her South Carolina island with a second bodyguard, an ex-Navy SEAL named Kevin, when Kevin comes into the room and points a gun at her.  He tells her to handcuff herself behind her back, which she does, and starts to lead her to the panic room that Rosie had installed.  Suddenly he’s hit on the head with a golden statue held by Rosie, and then the two women manage to put Kevin in the panic room.  His gun is useless there, Rosie tells Amy.  “He’s in there for the long run.”

And thus the Rosie and Amy begin their trip around the world, stopping only to bring Steve to America to join them, and the three of them start to work together to solve these murders.  Their stops include Dubai and Dublin and then back to Dubai, ending up in London.  There are murders along the way, suspicious influences, money-laundering criminals, and murderers.  All in all, it’s a fabulous trip.

Richard Osman continues the winning streak he started with The Thursday Murder Club, creating another group of characters who are utterly charming and beguiling, funny and determined.  I imagine We Solve Murders is only the first in the author’s new series; all I can say is that I hope so.

You can read more about Richard Osman at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Agnes Glin’s life has been dominated by two men, her father and her grandfather.  Now she’s going to Iceland, where both men were born, to find the truth of the secret that has ruled all three lives ever since she can remember.

Agnes was very close to her grandfather Einar, closer than she was to her father, visiting him every Sunday until his death a year earlier.  All she knows about the men’s lives in the small village of Bifröst is what led them to come to California, a tragedy known as the Frozen Madonna case.  It’s something her father, Magnús, would never talk about, nor would Einar.  Einar’s last words to Agnes on the subject were, “There is no before.  My life began when you were born,” but Agnes knows that cannot be true.

Now a true crime podcast is being developed by Nora Clark, an American who has gone to Bifröst to try to discover the story of the deaths of Marie Hvass, her paternal grandmother, and Marie’s infant daughter Agnes.  It’s forty years after the horrific event, and not everyone who was alive at the time is still alive and living in the village, and not everyone wants to remember the story.

Marie was a beautiful Danish young woman who married Einar and moved to the small village of Bifröst.  They had two children, Magnùs and Agnes, the latter for whom Agnes Glin is named.  No one knows what really happened to the mother and her daughter, but everyone thinks they know.  Their bodies were found in the snow by their six-year-old neighbor Ingvar.  Marie’s throat was slashed, the infant Agnes was drowned.

The villagers believed that Einar had murdered his wife and child, although it was never proven.  Then, when Einar and Magnús left for America, selling their land to a relative who had adjoining property, never returning to Iceland, the unofficial verdict against them was solidified.  Einar was guilty.

It’s a year after Agnes’ own life-changing event occurred, a fall that resulted in a badly injured left leg, leaving her with constant pain and a limp.  Perhaps it is that event that made her decide to accept the invitation to go on Nora’s podcast and hopefully learn the truth about the Frozen Madonna Murder.

When she arrives, another village-wide search is in progress.  A young woman, Ása Gunnarsdóttir, has gone missing, and everyone is looking for her.  Nora tells Agnes, “She was reported missing yesterday, and I have reason to believe it’s connected to your grandmother’s case.”

Although she’s fighting jet lag and the experience of being in a place where she doesn’t speak or understand the language, Agnes doesn’t want to be constrained by Nora’s interviews.  She meets Ingvar, the boy who discovered the two bodies; his mother, now suffering from dementia; Thor Thorsen, a relative of Einar’s;  and his father, Thor Senior, who is now  in a nursing home and blames his son for putting him there.

Melissa Larsen has written a compelling novel about secrets that lie buried for generations and what happens when they’re uncovered.  The relentless snow and ice that cover Biförst can’t hide the truth forever.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Now is the season for the “best of” lists.  Best films, best recordings, best television shows–you’re familiar with all of those.  But here’s the list you’ve really been waiting for–my list of the best mysteries of 2024.

The trend of mysteries that take place outside the United States and England continues, which I think is a great thing.  One of the pleasures of reading books in any genre is the fun of learning about a place you may never have lived in or visited.  If you’ve never been to France, Japan, or Cuba, here’s your opportunity to learn about them and perhaps put them on your bucket list, though I’d suggest without the murders.

My choices are in alphabetical order by author’s last name

DARK RIDE by Lou Berney,  ECHO by Tracy Clark, LAST SEEN IN HAVANA by Teresa Dovalpage, THE BEST LIES by David Ellis, IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME by Alex Finlay, THE SLATE by Matthew Fitzsimmons, THE FINAL CURTAIN by Keigo Higashino, LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED by Jeff Hoffman, HUNTED by Abir Mukherjee, NOTHING BUT THE BONES by Brian Panowich, A BLOOD RED MORNING by Mark Pryor, WORDHUNTER by Stella Sands, and DEATH IN THE DETAILS by Katie Tietjen.

I would have liked to include even more novels, but there are already a “baker’s dozen.”  Each and every book I’ve blogged about this year is worthy of having been included, so you can scroll through my reviews; if you’ve missed a couple or more, here’s your second chance. It’s never too late to curl up and read a great mystery.

All my best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a happy 2025.

Marilyn