Readingomnivore Reviews

MURDER IN COTTAGE #6 is the first in Diane Harmon’s cozy mystery series featuring Liz Lucas. It was published in 2015.

Liz Lucas operates the Red Cedar Spa, in Red Cedar, California, about an hour north of San Francisco. She’s been widowed for almost a year and thinks she may be interested in developing a new relationship. When her manager Bertha finds the body of the Mayor’s wife in Cabin #6, Liz reluctantly calls on the chief of police to come to the Spa.

I’m giving up at less than 10%. Exposition is clumsy. Foreshadowing is of the “had I but known” variety. Writing style is simple, declarative sentences. When Bertha reports the body, she and Liz converse about the dead woman’s background and problems before calling the police chief. Liz doesn’t want to involve him, whom she says is a stupid, lecherous, fat man, but he can help control negative publicity, so she’s willing to use him. She doesn’t call 911, and she doesn’t indicate that a murder’s involved. There’s little sense of place.

No way do I want to continue. No grade because not finished.

Charles Kingston’s MURDER IN PICCADILLY was originally published in 1936, then reissued in e-book format in 2015. Its detective is Chief Inspector Wade of Scotland Yard.

Bobby Cheldon is 23 years old, a wastrel whose expectations of Broadridge Manor and £10,000 a year as the heir of his uncle Massy Cheldon has made him unwilling to work and unable to support himself in a style to which he feels entitled. The spoilt darling of his mother, he hates his 53-year-old uncle who may live twenty or more years; he’s passionately in love with Nancy Curzon, a dancer at the Frozen Fang nightclub, who’s flattered by his attentions but has no intention of marrying a poor man. Her good friend Peter “Nosey” Ruslin comes up with a foolproof plan by which Bobbie, Nancy, and he may obtain their hearts’ desires. It all depends on Massy Cheldon’s death, which can be arranged.

It’s important to remember the conventions of the crime novel at the time MURDER IN PICCADILLY was written. They were much different from those current. The physical setting is the lower-class districts of London, with only one visit to Sussex and Broadridge Manor and with only occasional atmospheric embellishment: “To the majority of the city’s millions, murder was something that did not exist outside a novel or a newspaper, and when it was actually brought to their doorstep they were aroused to a pitch of excitement and curiosity that affected the nervous system and clamoured for satiation. It was the crime of the year, something peculiar to London itself, something that seemed to strike at London’s very heart. None of your Hammersmith or Whitechapel now. This was London, real London, Piccadilly. And to the hysteria of horror was added the wonder of its daring.” (163)

Characterization is better developed than in most crime novels of its period. None of the characters are attractive, especially Massy Cheldon, a miser who delighted in his selfishness and pompous pronouncements. “Massy Cheldon returned to the subject of the gold mining market. He was a recognized expert on money greed, and the peer and the baronet listened with respectful attention to his dissertation on the act of turning sufficient into superfluity. All that was needed, he reminded them, was cleverness, astuteness, mental poise, vision and a savoir faire which to the multitude must ever be an unknown quantity. Anyone, however, fortunate enough to be found allied with genius, might be certain of triumphing over the difficulties and obstacles which beset ordinary persons in their efforts to tempt Dane Fortune successfully.” (133) Bobbie is no more admirable. “How often had Bobbie grudgingly adverted to the fact that every day his uncle lived he, the misunderstood heir, lost a day’s income. There lay the explanation of his unwillingness o study, his failure to pass the preliminary examination for the Bar, his diurnal dissatisfaction with all the world and its inhabitants except a small coterie of imitation intellectuals which infested the purlieus of Fulham and Chelsea.” (9-10)

The strength of MURDER IN PICCADILLY lies in its plot. It’s clear early on that Massy Cheldon will die so that Bobbie and inherit and marry Nancy, with Nosey as the fairy godfather making all possible for a price. The only questions are how soon will he die and will they get away with the murder. There is a major, satisfyingly ironic surprise ending that provides suitable punishment to the plotters.

MURDER IN PICCADILLY is well worth the time, both as a relic of the Golden Age and as a beautifully crafted plot. (B)

CHEF MAURICE AND THE WRATH OF GRAPES is the second book in J. A. Lang’s Chef Maurice series. It was published in e-book format in 2015.

Chef Maurice Manchot is the head chef and owner of Le Cochon Rouge, the only fine-dining restaurant in the Cotswold village of Beakley. He and his best friend Arthur Wodington-Smythe, food critic for the England Observer, have formed the Cochon Rouge Wine Appreciation Society to encourage the enjoyment of fine wine and incidentally to educate Chef’s staff on wine pairings. Both are invited to a dinner and wine tasting at Bourne Hall, home of Sir William Burton-Trent, local landowner and collector of fine and aged wines. He’s invested heavily in legendary vintage wines through wine auctions, largely advised by wine expert Charles Resnick. Also present at the dinner and tasting, which will compare French and California burgundies, are his sister-in-law Lady Margaret; his godson Bertie and his wife Ariane Lafoute, who run the Chateau Lafoute vineyards in France, and Chuck Paloni, Hollywood actor turned director turned vineyard owner. Serving them is the impeccable Gilles. But while he’s in the wine cellar choosing the vintages to accompany dinner, someone kills Sir William. Snow shows that no one entered Bourne Hall from the outside. Who wanted Sir William dead, and why?

Lang continues the cast of characters begin in the first book, with sous-chef Patrick’s relationship with PC Lucy Gavistone only slightly advanced, Alf still bumptious, Hamilton (truffle pig in training) living high on the hog. Most development focuses on the individuals particular to this book, especially to Gilles, the cook Mrs. Bates, and Sir William. Though not as prominent as in the earlier book, humor still enlivens characterization: “If you were the kind of person to describe body shapes via the medium of vegetables, Chef Maurice would most likely be an extra-large turnip. It was hard to imagine him doing anything as aerodynamic as ice-skating. Though, perhaps, he could be useful as an early warning system for detecting patches of thin ice.” (39-40)

Lang uses atmosphere to develop character, showing Mrs. Bates’s upset at Sir Williams’s death the night before: “The Bourne Hall kitches looked as if half a dozen pastry chefs had moved in and proceeded to start a competitive bake-off. Every surface was covered in bags of flour, cartons of eggs, wooden spoons, whisks and mixing bowls of all designs and sizes. The central table was home to a three-tier black forest gateau, a large chocolate brownie cake, one rotund Christmas pudding, a wedding-style square white cake encrusted in icing swirls, dozens of home-made mince pies, and a trio of cream-and-fruit loaded pavlovas.The smell of fresh jam bubbling on the stove heralded the imminent arrival of at leas a quartet of Victoria sponge cakes.” (100)

The plot is set up with a reasonable motive for Sir William’s murder but, once the reader spots the motive, there’s only one logical suspect.

CHEF MAURICE AND THE WRATH OF GRAPES is not as strong as CHEF MAURICE AND A SPOT OF TRUFFLE, but it’s still an enjoyable read. I will be following the series. (B)

Jessica L. Randall’s THE OBITUARY SOCIETY was a free or inexpensive Kindle e-book published in 2014. Its protagonist is Lila Moore, a 24-year-old who’s returned to Auburn, Nebraska, to bury her grandfather Isaac Moore and refurbish the family home he’d left her. He had simply shut it up one day and moved to Wyoming, where he’d remained the rest of his life without discussing his reasons for leaving Auburn. Lila’s staying with her great-aunt Ada Moore Foster while repairs are done on her house.

I’m giving up at 25% into the book. So far Lila has met the members of the Auburn Ladies’ Society, aka the Obituary Society, who meet regularly to discuss the obituaries and sad news of accidents, illnesses, and deaths and to exhibit their baking prowess to each other. She’s met handsome attorney Asher Wilding and divorced computer nerd Max Ellison, each of whom a member of the Obituary Society has “bought” at the First United Methodist Church fund-raising auction for Lila a date.

There’s no sense of reality in THE OBITUARY SOCIETY. Lila and her family are not rich--she and Ada together inherit only $11,000 from Isaac. There’s no mention of Lila’s having a profession or job of any kind either before or after her move to Auburn, yet she’s planning to renovate the house to sell. What is she living on?

Characterization is sketchy at best. Something is obviously amiss, since Ada’s husband David who returned mentally damaged from Vietnam disappeared about the time Isaac left Auburn. Ada had been adamant that Lila stay away from the pond on the back of her inherited property, but Lila persists. She has an encounter in which something tries to pull her under the water, only to be rescued by Max’s precocious daughter Juniper. What on earth is going on? Frankly, I don’t care enough to continue reading. Lila, Asher, Max, even Juniper, are staples in the old romantic suspense novels from the 1950-60s. If I’m going to read Mary Stewart and Dorothy Eden, I prefer the originals.

No grade because THE OBITUARY SOCIETY won’t be finished.

SKELETON KEY is one of Robert Richardson’s mystery series featuring playwright and novelist Augustus Maltravers. Originally published in 1988, it was reissued in e-book format in 2014.

Augustus Maltravers and his lady, the actress Tess Davy, are in Capley for the annual village cricket match. The town fields a team against one from Edenbridge Estate, home of the Earls of Pembury. Gus and his host Peter Penrose are to play for the Estate, the team led by Simon Hawkhurst, Lord Dunford, heir to the Earl of Pembury, and by Alister York, Lord Pembury’s secretary. At the annual party hosted by the captain of the Town team, someone beats Simon’s head in with a cricket ball. There are three major suspects: his cousin Oliver Hawkhurst, next heir after Simon, who’s in desperate need of money which his uncle and cousin have refused to advance; Luke Norman, Simon’s lover who is unwilling to break off their affair though Simon must marry and beget an heir; and Alister York, who suspects Simon of having an affair with his wife Joanna. But which?

The plot plays fair, linking disparate elements to make a satisfactory whole. I found the conclusion unsatisfactory because one of the men certainly did not receive justice for his actions--he gets away with gross psychological and emotional abuse. I like that Maltravers mostly leaves the investigation to the police, with his and Tess’s intervention primarily to help Joanna York.

Characters are strong and individual, limited in number to those necessary to carry the story. Richardson is good at using setting, especially atmosphere, to show personality: “...the [oboe] glided into the flowing theme of Greensleeves, the reedy, mellifluous notes placid as slow-moving water beneath overhanging leaf-laden trees. From his seat by one of the high windows, Maltravers gazed out into the gleaming evening. The music evoked a romantic legend of the past in which the manifest inconveniences--indeed, the downright nastiness--of Tudor life were replaced by false but seductive images. A great Queen and her witty court (all stinking to high heaven in truth) and a cheerful population of country folk living contented merry lives and drinking good ale (in fact generally starving and dying from revolting diseases) were conjured up by the gentle melody. Maltravers was quite prepared to suspend knowledge of the reality and bask in the deception as dwindling twilight seeped through the graceful, oak-panelled, marble-floored hall....” Sense of place is outstanding.

SKELETON KEY is a winner, despite its age. (A)

Oliver Tidy’s A DOG’S LIFE is the fourth in his Romney and March Files set in Dover, Kent, in England. It was published in e-book format in 2014.

Change is in the air at Dover CID. Superintendent Falkner has been retired, replaced by Superintendent Vivian Vine, already known to Romney and crew for the sackings, demotions, and changes wrought at her previous post. Her remit is to bring Dover station into conformity with the policies and procedures of the modern Kent Constabulary. Romney is already on her radar because Jimmy Savage’s conviction for manslaughter three years before is about to be appealed on the grounds that Dover CID had fitted him up; Romney had been the arresting officer. Soon after he’d been visited by Detective Constable Peter Grimes, Bernie Stark, chief witness against Savage, turns up dead with his corpse set alight. Then after a verbal altercation with three competing authors at her book signing, best-selling Internet author Stephanie Lather is found dead from massive blunt force trauma in her room at the Marina Hotel. She’s identified by her agent, only Detective Sergeant Joy Marsh, a fan who’d attended the signing, realizes it’s not the same woman who spoke that morning. She is Rachel Sparrow, Stephanie’s estranged sister, whom she’d asked to attend the signing dressed in a duplicate of her own clothing. The night of Rachel’s death, Stephanie consumes sleeping pills and alcohol, after which she drowned in her bathtub in London. The murder weapon and hotel room key are in her flat, and her death appears a suicide. What is going on? Romney’s career is on the line.

Relationships play an important role in Tidy’s Romney and Marsh series, the most important one involving Romney, Grimes, and Marsh. They are professionals to the core with little interaction off the job, but they respect each other and care more deeply than any would acknowledge openly. They have individual problems that make them seem very real people. Joy Marsh is estranged from her sister Tracy, who’s caring for their mother who is battling cancer and a major heart attack; she dies during the case. Grimes, staying for a time with Romney as dilatory builders fail to get his home rebuilt after major destruction from a storm-felled tree, misses his family and doesn’t find Romney a congenial housemate. Romney’s secretly seeing a psychiatrist for PTSD following a horrific shotgun multiple murder. Superintendent Vine adds to their stress with her pronouncement that Grimes will lose weight, her attempt to recruit Marsh as her informant in CID, and her close supervision of Romney’s activities.

Sense of place is outstanding. Not only does Tidy use physical locations skillfully, but he uses setting to demonstrate personality. “...[Marsh] had come to appreciate that Dover had much of interest to offer those who were prepared to look for it and who were bored with shopping or the pub. As well as the iconic cliffs and the splendid walks they provided, there was the busy ferry port with its constant flow of sea traffic; a bit of a beach with safe swimming just outside her front door; there were museums and a good number of fascinating historic buildings and places of interest to fritter away a day off: the Castle, the Grand Shaft, the Wartime Tunnels, and, set high above Dover on the Kent Downs, the Western Heights. As well as all this, she didn’t have to travel far by bicycle to get into some wonderful countryside. And, although she still had not found time for it, France was a very short journey away. If she ignored the people and focused on her physical surroundings it wasn’t such a bad town to live in.”

Tidy keeps attention focused on Romney’s suspect in Rachel Sparrows murder and slips in a genuine surprise killer. There’s a wonderfully ironic twist in the death of Berne Stark.

The Romney and Marsh series is strong. A DOG’S LIFE continues it well. (A-)

MUFFIN MAN is the first book in Brad Whittington’s projected Sheriff John Lawson mystery series set in Bolero County, in south central Texas. It was published in e-book format in 2012. I hope he continues the series.

Sheriff John Lawson is running for re-election against Jim Battles, a retired police chief from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area; Battles is backed by County Judge Luther Gibson who happens to be married to Lawson’s ex-wife Jennifer. tMUFFIN MAN opens with Lawson called to a protest at Cook Brothers construction company. The local megachurch Abundant Life Tabernacle claims that Cook Brothers knowingly installed a defective fire suppression system, responsible for allowing their building to burn to the ground. Two of their protestors enter the warehouse, barricade themselves in a storeroom, set it on fire, and somehow escape. When Lawson and his deputy enter the room, they’re gone. This isn’t the biggest news of the week, however; the gynatorium of the Bolero County HIgh School collapsed the Friday before. Cook Brothers had done the excavation and foundation work on the building in 1989. Oddly enough, their archives covering this period are destroyed in the fire. Then retired County Inspector Edward Crookshank writes a letter to the Bolero Bulletin, saying he has proof that the high school building had been built only through corruption. When Lawson goes to his cabin, Crookshank is dead and all his files, carefully retained from his tenure in office, have been burnt. What’s going on in Bolero County? Adding to Lawson’s problems, his son Christopher has decided to take a year off from his full-ride engineering scholarship to Texas A&M to dig water wells in Africa. Lawson’s father Rusty, who’d disappeared during a manic phase of his bipolar disorder, shows up in town after 24 years, and Lawson’s mother Deborah is ready and willing to take him back without explanation.

The plot in MUFFIN MAN is like that in many police procedurals. It opens with a small, almost insignificant crime that, as the case is worked, reveals great ramifications. It does not involve a murder. Perhaps because this is the first book in a possible series, Lawson’s personal life occupies as much of his time as the case. Two complaints--it’s a bit much to play every card of poker hands; “discrete” (separate, distinct) is not the same as “discreet” (circumspect, careful in speech and behavior).

Characters are good. Whittington has created a believable group in the Bolero County Sheriff’s Department, including gung-ho young deputy Tyler Lovejoy, techie Twink, and single mother dispatcher Sam. Lawson’s mother Deborah is a genuine Pollyanna, seeing portents for them all in the daily horoscopes. Lawton himself carries serious emotional baggage from the effects of his father’s mental illness, the poverty in which he and his mother lived after Rusty’s disappearance, and Jennifer’s desertion: “John found belief difficult. He questioned good fortune. He was skeptical of coincidence, suspicious of unwarranted favors, and was certain that a good thing would not last and that people rarely got what they really deserved, reward or punishment. He doubted that there was some force up there watching out for him or sending him messages. And he never clapped for Tinkerbell, not even as a kid.” (103) These are people I will enjoy getting to know.

Sense of place is outstanding. MUFFIN MAN opens and closes with Lawson’s obsessive anticipation of a a barbecue beef ribs dinner from Stella’s Kitchen. Bolero, Texas, is a realistic small Southern town. “Mom never changed the sign after she bought [the beauty parlor]. John thought it was a good decision. Even if she had changed it to Deborah’s, or something regrettable like The Clip Joint, everyone would continue to call it Mabel’s anyway. Small towns like Bolero were slow to change. He knew old-timers who still gave directions according to landmarks that had been gone for decades. ‘Go down to the old Arco station and hang a left.’ No matter that for the last fifteen years the Arco station was a coffee shop run by a couple from Colorado. If you didn’t know about the old Arco station, you deserved to get lost.” (64)

MUFFIN MAN is an encouraging start to what I hope will become a solid series. (A-)

DELAYED & DENIED is the eighth novel in J. J. Salkeld’s Lakeland Murders series featuring Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Hall (retired) and his wife Detective Jane Francis of the Cumbria Constabulary.

Hall is happy being house husband and nanny to young daughter Grace while Jane Francis resumes her career, but he’s a bit bored. When retired Crown Prosecutor Sarah Hardcastle approaches him to review Adam Burke’s conviction for murdering his wife Sharon some twenty years before, he’s pleased to be active again but doesn’t expect much. He recruits retired Detective Constable Ray Dixon to serve as his legs. It doesn’t take long for both to realize that the case had never been properly investigated and that Burke’s conviction depended almost entirely on the testimony of his best mate Jack Lee. Some weeks after Sharon Burke’s disappearance, Lee told the police that Burke had confessed the murder and told him where Sharon’s body had been dumped. In the meantime, Francis and Detective Sergeant Ian Mann investigate the strangulation death of Jenny Smith in Whitehaven. She’d been using the Internet to find men for sex. Pressure is on for Francis to make a quick arrest of Jenny’s husband, but neither she nor Mann think him guilty. Can there possibly be a connection between the Burke and Smith murders so far apart?

Salkeld sets up an interesting parallel plot between Sharon Burke and Jenny Smith’s murders, with new Assistant Chief Constable Jon Winters pushing Jane Francis for an early arrest of Phil Smith, on the grounds that the husband is usually guilty. He’s specifically warned Francis that her upcoming promotion depends on both her keeping the Burke re-investigation by Hall under control and on quickly solving the Smith case. I hope that the situation of the police force in Great Britain is exaggerated in Salkeld’s stories because the picture presented is bleak--investigations not carried out or rushed and inadequate due to lack of officers and lack of funding.

Hall and Francis are strong protagonists, both dedicated professionals through whose eyes we see the action. Salkeld has created a successful team, though Mann is secondary in this story and young Detective Constable Keith Iredale is seconded to Manchester for three months for training to work on-line offenses. It’s good to see Ray Dixon back. “...Hall spent the time productively enough, reading the notes that Ray Dixon had sen him. The spelling was much as he remembered it, but the thinking was too, and that was what actually mattered. Dixon was sceptical, to the point of contrariness, but that was just how Hall wanted it. Because if and when Ray Dixon started talking about a miscarriage of justice then Hall would know that they definitely were on to something.”

Plenty of physical details establish the locale, but there’s little atmospheric description. DELAYED & DENIED is another good read in a strong series. (B+)

Janie Coffey’s SUNBAKED was a free or inexpensive e-book download published in 2015. It received many good reviews. When I realized at 61% that I was finding things to do to keep from reading it, I quit. I’m not curious enough that my theory of the crime is correct, to finish the book.

Several things bothered me about it. One is the speed with which it happens. Nina Spark, 31-year-old sociology professor and freelance writer of travel articles, returns one evening from a conference to find her husband in flagrante. By 2 AM, she’s ejected him from her life and bought of the Internet a cottage on Pineapple Cay. In less than two weeks, she’s completed the purchase of a house in a foreign country, arranged a leave of absence from her teaching job (in January during the school term for a non-emergency), lined up freelancing for an income, sublet her New York apartment, presumably initiated divorce proceedings, and moved to the Caribbean with only the contents of one carried-on duffel bag.

Nina is not believable. She’s not independently wealthy--her father owns a pyrotechnics business and her mother sewed shirts for L. L. Bean until the year before--yet finances receive no attention. She’s incredibly naive, taking everyone she meets at face value, believing everything she’s told, responding to friendliness like a golden retriever puppy. She’s also spending major time with Ted Matthews who owns a fishing lodge next to her cottage, less than two weeks since her marital split. The ease with which she enters the upper echelons of Pineapple Cay society is unrealistic. Other characters are stereotypes, especially the Bassetts.

The mystery portion of the plot is definitely off-stage. Nina, as writer covering it for a magazine article, attends the ultra-exclusive dinner party held by former rock star Jules Savage and his wife Kiki to celebrate the donation of the multi-million dollar emerald necklace recovered from the wreck of the Morning Glory in 1780 by would-be developer Barry Bassett to the Pineapple Cay Museum. Wearing the necklace, his wife Tiffany is forcibly abducted. Bassett and his wife are both disliked intensely, he because of his projected resort-condominium development and she because she’s ill-mannered and declasse. We’re told that the police are investigating, but none of it is seen.

Where is Pineapple Cay? Nina is specifically told she’s not in the United States any more. References to the main island establishes it as part of a chain, but the only other named islands are uninhabited cays nearby. It’s not clear if the islands are an independent nation or affiliated. Despite its setting in the Caribbean, only two people of color are named: Police Chief Superintendent John ‘Blue’ Roker, who’s mixed race but with Paul Newman blue eyes, and Veronica Steeves, who owns The Redoubt, a bar/restaurant where Nina spends time. There’s some atmospheric description but little sense of place since the whole setting is free-floating.

SUNBAKED doesn’t have enough meat on its bones to be satisfying, even in the salad days of late summer. No grade because not finished.

JUST A COINCIDENCE is the second book in P. F. Ford’s series featuring Detective Sergeant David Slater of the Tinton CID in Hampshire. It was a free or inexpensive e-book published in 2015.

When a dog discovers the smashed body of a woman in the Haunted Copse outside Tinton, DS Dave Slater and DS Norman Norman* move from the minor cases they are covering (Slater looking for a flasher and Norm after an illiterate counterfeiter of Guchi bags) to cover the murder. While they’re working the first crime scene, the dog turns up the femur of a child; search reveals a shallow grave with the skeletons of a woman and a child, buried in the Copse some fifteen years before. Coincidence strikes--the smashed victim dropped out of a low-flying airplane is Sarah Townley, who’s come from Birmingham looking for what happened to her sister and niece, Sandra and Rose Bessler who disappeared fifteen years ago. DNA evidence proves the skeletons are Sarah’s missing relatives. Investigation leads to a smuggling ring, a botched investigation of the Besslers’ disappearance, and a thrill-seeking PC Phillipa Flight who endangers both Slater and DC Steve Biddeford’s careers.

In a way this series reminds me of Colin Dexter’s MORSE because it’s as much about the relationships between the CID team members as about the mystery. The core is Slater, Norman, and Biddeford, with the addition this time of PC Flight, PC Jane Jolly, and DC Tony Ashton. Ford does a creditable job of drawing characters who are individual and believable as colleagues and, in some cases, friends. Slater mentors Biddeford even as Norman mentors him, a situation set up by DI Bob Murray who, facing budget and personnel constraints, attempts to maximize the potential of all his officers. PC Jolly is a welcome addition--a middle-aged woman, rather dumpy in appearance, but with a warm personality, good judgement, and initiative to follow up on her findings. Detection in Tinton is very much a team effort, not grandstanding.

The plot is satisfyingly involved, as one piece of information leads to another to tie together what appear to be discrete cases. The conclusion is realistic, in that major criminals escape; the method of the Besslers’ murder make for an unexpected killer.

As noted in reviews of previous Slater stories, the writing style and tone are reminiscent of the mysteries of the 1950-60s. Setting is well indicated physically, but atmosphere receives little attention. “The Haunted Copse was one of those rare pieces of natural, old, native woodland. It didn’t cover a particularly large area, less than 10 acres in total, and in places it was barely 50 yards from one side to the other. No-one really knew where the stories of ghosts and ghouls had originated, but it had could well have been from the plain and simple fact that the place was very old, and to be honest it was just plain spooky!” (45)

JUST A COINCIDENCE is an enjoyable read. (A-)

*not a typo

A QUIET KILL is the first book in Janet Brons’s mystery series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Hay of Scotland Yard and Inspector Elizabeth Forsyth of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is available in free or inexpensive e-book format. It is set in 1997.

When Natalie Guerin, head of the Canadian High Commission’s trade section is found murdered in the official residence of the High Commissioner in London*, DCI Hay is delegated to investigate; because this is officially Canadian territory, Inspector Forsyth is sent from Ottawa to investigate the murder since the most likely suspects are within the Commission--all visitors had been signed out before Guerin’s time of death. Both are suspicious since there’s no established protocol for such a joint investigation, and both governments want a quick, quiet solution. The police turn up many motives: environmentalists had sent Guerin threatening letters; she died twelve weeks pregnant from an affair; she was loathed by the head of the Commission’s political section; and she’d been asking questions about Canadian troop involvements in Bosnia some years before, when rumors of sex crimes and a major drug operation were rampant. Then Lester Wilmot, proprietor of Great Norther Furriers, is murdered after having been vandalized and sent warning letters by environmentalists. Underlining the connection is their methods of death. Guerin had been hit in the head with the sort of club used by hunters in killing baby seals, then her throat cut; the club is left withe body. Wilmot had been garroted and hung, a method known in Canada as the collet used by trappers to kill small animals like foxes. Coincidence?

A QUIET KILL is reminiscent of the Golden Age novels, though with more strongly developed characters than most. Both Hay and Forsyth are believable, well-respected professionals whose job doesn’t leave much time for a personal life. It takes time and effort from both to overcome negative impressions and work well together. “[Forsyth’d] come across his type before: moody and grumpy, thought that the quality of his mind would make up for his personal shortcomings. If she were honest, she’d almost been frightened of him this morning. Some old instinct, born of some past pain, had raised itself up to protect her from a man who, for an instant, had seemed menacing. She was being unfair. She knew that Hay hadn’t come close to threatening her, that doubtless he’d be horrified to know the thought that had crossed her mind. She knew she was overreacting. Hay was just \something of a grouch, that was all. With a finely tuned sense of humor, too. He seemed to find her funny anyway. No everybody did. She suspected that some people thought her a smartass.” (116-7) Hay and Forsyth are seconded respectively by DS Ray Wilkins and RCMP Sgt. Gilles Ouellette, who both play major roles in uncovering the killer. They form a team that will be interesting to get to know.

Plot is police procedural, and Brons plays fair with giving all the information as it is uncovered. It’s an excellent job of taking a seemingly isolated crime and opening its hidden ramifications. Physical locations clearly indicate London, but there’s little sense of place, possibly because almost all the action occurs in the High Commission.

A QUIET KILL is a good start to a series I will pursue. (B+)

The official representative of a Commonwealth nation serving in another Commonwealth nation is a High Commissioner, and his residence/business place is the High Commission, officially sovereign territory of his home country. Thus the Canadian representative in London is the High Commissioner; if he were serving in a foreign country like the United States or France, his title would be Ambassador, living and working from the Canadian Embassy.

THE FROZEN SHROUD is part of Marttn Edwards’s Lake District mystery series featuring historian Daniel Kind and DCI Hannah Scarlett of the Cumbria Constabulary. It was published in e-book and print formats in 2013.

Ravenbank, a peninsula in Ullswater Lake formerly known as Satan’s Head, had been the scene of a horrific murder before WWI. A pregnant housemaid Gertrude Smith had her face smashed to a pulp on Hallowe’en; when found, the blanket placed over her ruined face had frozen to the wound. Letty Hodgkinson, the mentally-ill wife of Gertrude’s lover, committed suicide the next day, so she was believed guilty. Five years before Daniel and Hannah become involved in the story, someone killed Shenagh Moss in the same way--Ravenbank, Hallowe’en, face smashed in and covered. She’d been stalked by former boyfriend Calvin Meek, who was killed in a car crash fleeing from the scene. He’s presumed guilty of Shenagh’s murder. Moving on five years, Ravenbank is now owned by Oz and Melody Knight, but the people living on the peninsula are the same: housekeeper Miriam Parks and her musician son Robin, Jeffery Burgoyne and boyfriend Alex Quinlan. Terry Poynton, Hannah Scarlett’s best friend since school days, is involved with Robin Parks; she, Daniel Kind, and Daniel’s sister Louise are all invited to the Knights’ lavish Hallowe’en party. But Terri is killed in the same way as Shelagh Moss and Gertrude Smith. Stefan Deyna, Terri’s former boyfriend who’s stalked her and made threats, is in the vicinity when she died; he tries to flee the police. Is he guilty? Or is the same killer responsible for both Shelagh and Terri?

Edwards does a good job of keeping the plot tight with echoes of the past affecting the cases in the present. Daniel’s curious about the Faceless Woman, Gertrude Smith’s ghost said to walk the Ravenbank lane on Hallowe’en; Hannah’s preoccupied with her split from longtime lover Marc Amos, a potential relationship with DS Greg Wharf, and significant downsizing of her Cold Case Review Team. She can’t, of course, be involved in the investigation of Terri’s death officially, but she’s definitely concerned that her killer be found. “Hannah forced herself not to think about the damage done to Terri’s lovely face. She didn’t care whether Stefan was responsible, or one of the supposedly pleasant party-goers. Never would she rest until the killer paid the price. It wasn’t simply a matter doing justice. Her grief was so raw that she wanted revenge.” (178) An experienced reader may identify the killer before Daniel and Hannah, but Edwards is particularly clever at hiding the name and motive in plain sight.

Characterization is always strong in the Lake District mysteries. Edwards creates a believable law enforcement community in the Cold Case Review Team, putting it under the pressure of increasing budget and personnel cuts that reveal the personalities of its members. As a historian by training and profession, Daniel Kind’s expertise equips him to be as effective as Hannah in gathering information and making deductions. Edwards is adept at using setting to convey character: “The only signs of life, a rabbit scuttling across the lane into the undergrowth, and the mournful cawing of a crow. Daniel understood how the people of the valley had regarded this small, secretive enclave as alien and frightening; set apart from the civilization they knew. Solitary by instinct, he found the quiet desolation of Ravenbank, and the sense that time had passed it by, weirdly exhilarating. He felt shivery, too, but with excitement. Ravenbank had an air of mystery. Anything might happen here.” (97) Sense of place as formed by its history is first-rate.

Two criticisms of THE FROZEN SHROUD. One is an explicit sex scene (fortunately interrupted) between Hannah and Greg Wharf that adds nothing. The second involves editing; Mrs. Knight is introduced as Melody, later referred to as Melanie for several pages, then again to Melody. Still, THE FROZEN SHROUD is well done. (A-)

Robert D. Hare’s WITHOUT CONSCIENCE: THE DISTURBING WORLD OF THE PSYCHOPATH was issued in e-book format in 1999, originally printed in 1995. It is a plain English account of his theories about psychopathy and its occurrence in Canada and the United States.

As Hare sees it, the term “psychopath” and “sociopath” are used pretty much interchangeably, describing the same characteristics of individuals: glib and superficial, often witty, articulate, unlikely but convincing stories putting self in a good light; egocentric and grandiose, narcissistic with inflated self-worth; lack of remorse or guilt, with no concern about effects of actions on other people; lack of empathy, inability to identify with another person; deceitful and manipulative, unfazed by being found out, lies for no apparent reason; shallow emotions, as if going through the motions. Other characteristics include the person’s high impulsivity; poor behavior control, over-reactive to perceived injury or insult; a need for excitement, to live life in the fast lane, on the edge; lack of responsibility, with obligations, commitments, good intentions meaning nothing; early behavior problems, such as bullying, cheating, theft, fire-setting, truancy, drugs, vandalism, violence, running away, precocious sexuality, cruelty to animals and other children; and adult antisocial behavior. Hare says those who believe that psychopathy comes from poor or inadequate socialization caused by environmental factors usually refer to these individuals as “sociopaths;” those who believe that genetic, emotional, or biological factors are responsible usually refer to “psychopaths.” Hare believes the explanation lies somewhere along the nature-nurture continuum. He does not believe that psychopaths in general are, by modern legal or psychiatric standards, insane.They choose their actions.

Since the research data is over twenty years old, the numbers and percentages of psychopaths active in North America are probably grossly understated. Hare does say that the incidence seems to be increasing dramatically, especially among younger individuals. One of his most important points is that, while many criminals are psychopaths based on his Psychopathy Checklist developed for objective diagnosis, most criminals are not psychopaths, and many, many psychopaths are not criminals. They may have devastating effects on the lives of all they encounter but technically do not violate the law. “If I were unable to study psychopaths in prison, my next choice would very likely be a place like the Vancouver Stock Exchange.” (119)

Just as the causes of psychopathy are not known, effective therapies are lacking. For any therapy to work, the patient must know the problem and be willing to work to correct it. Psychopaths see themselves as fine, so there’s no perceived need for change. They generally participate in therapy only when forced to do so, using it to manipulate others, including the therapists, and to learn how be better manipulators.

In parts WITHOUT CONSCIENCE sounds like an advertising brochure for Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist, but it is a genuinely scary book. It’s almost certain that all of us have known at least one psychopath. About the only defense against them is awareness and caution. He recommends following the old truism that, if something or someone seems too good to be true, he/she/it probably is. Sad but necessary commentary on the world. (A)

Maureen Jennings’s SEASON OF DARKNESS is the first in her Detective Inspector Tom Tyler of the Whitechurch, Shropshire, Police, set in 1940 shortly after Dunkirk. It was printed in 2011.

If you enjoyed Foyle’s War on MYSTERY, you will probably enjoy SEASON OF DARKNESS. Tyler and Sergeant Basil Gough, both veterans of World War I, and a pair of young constables police a sizable area including an Army-run internment camp for German nationals trapped in Great Britain by the outbreak of the war. When Elsie Bate, foreman of the local Land Girls and no better than she should be, is found murdered, her light-fingered ways and prying become common knowledge; she’d been a frequent visitor to the camp. Her best friend Rose Watkins calls Tyler to tell him something about Elsie’s death, on her way to attend Mass at the camp. Tyler was out, and Rose doesn’t make it. Her body is found close to where Elsie’s had been, strangled. There’s a German mole within the camp, the official translator Clare Devereau is Tyler’s long-lost love who married a Swiss millionaire, Tyler’s son Jimmy escaped from Dunkirk but is obviously not coping well, locals suspect anti-war activist and local wise woman Alice Thorne, and someone’s working the black market. What else can go wrong?

The plot is well constructed, police procedural in format, with appropriate hints about German and MI5 operatives. Tyler is not best pleased to have been kept in the dark about the goings on at the camp but is reminded that the war effort requires much to be kept sub rosa. Jennings uses occasional short chapters from the viewpoint of the mole to avoid large chunks of exposition. She manages a genuine, believable, but surprise ending in the Elsie Bates story line

Characters are strong. “Tom Tyler had never considered himself to be a religious man since he had grown to adulthood. More agnostic than anything was how he described himself, but in the cool earth-scented night, he was moved to utter a kind of prayer. Please help me, Lord. I need some guidance here. I’m bloody lost, if you must know, and will excuse the profanity. I am, my family is, the entire bloody world is, if it comes to that. I’m not going to say that you’re on our side because the Germans probably think the same thing, but I know there are forces at work here that I’ve never seen before. Not even in the previous war, and I was witness to lots of bad things. We are in the grip of a terrible darkness. I’m not going to promise to be a good man from now on, I’d probably renege at the first opportunity, but I also wan to do the right things for the people I love. However small, if there is anything I can do to protect this country of mine, I will do it. As Winnie keeps nattering at us, we must overcome. And we must.” (363)

Sense of time and place are good. “The houses were bathed in the soft, golden light of early morning; cattle grazed on the green, lush hills behind te town. People bought postcards of places like this. England at its most beautiful. Whitechurch was too rural to be of interest to the Luftwaffe, and so far the bombers hadn’t touched it. It was only when you saw the black wreaths on some of the doors; only when you noticed that the shop windows were displaying fewer and fewer wares; only at night, when the streets went dark in compliance with the blackout regulations; only then did you have to acknowledge the old life had gone forever.” (13)

SEASON OF DARKNESS is a good start for a new series. (A-)

Susan Hunter’s DANGEROUS HABITS was a free or inexpensive e-book published in 2014. It is the first in her projected Leah Nash mystery series set in Himmel, Wisconsin. Leah is a newspaper reporter whose stubbornness and temper have her fired from her Miami newspaper, now back home working for the Himmel Times Weekly.

When Sister Mattea Riordan, a nun in the Catherines who operate the DeMoss Academy for troubled and dysfunctional adolescents is found dead in the Himmel River, Leah is surprised to find that she’d been to the newspaper office to leave a book and message for her. Inside the book is the copy of a five-year-old newspaper clipping, on one side a photo of Max and Ellie Schrieber and Ellie’s son Alex McAllister, and on the other the story of the discovery of Leah’s sister Lacey’s body. Lacey, who’d been at DeMoss for her acting out and drug abuse, had disappeared some six months earlier. Max is Leah’s boss at the Times. Leah concludes that Sister Mattea had been trying to give her information about Lacey’s death, that Lacey had been killed by someone, not in a drunken fall that left her unconscious to die of exposure. Despite everyone’s pleas to leave it alone, Leah is determined to show that Lacey and Sister Mattea were both murdered, but why and by whom?

The plot is overwrought. In a small town of 15,000 people, there’s an active gay community, embezzlement, gambling addiction, a pedophilia-child pornography ring, a pedophile not connected to the ring, a felon who left the scene of a fatal accident when the passenger was not yet dead, the kidnapping of a baby, and multiple murders and murderers. To be fair, Hunter does foreshadow the villains’ identities, but she plays on readers’ preconceptions of criminals and their behavior to hide them in plain sight.

Characterization is good, though Leah tends to get on a horse and ride off in all directions. She’s convinced of what she knows, based on suppositions, intuitions, and occasional bits of information, until something else comes along and her whole theory changes. “It’s true. I can be bossy, overbearing, know-it-all, stubborn, single-minded (I really should write that down for my online dating profile). But it’s not because I don’t think that other people are competent or smart. I do. I really do. It’s just that no matter how hard I try, I can’t believe that anyone else is really going to care as much as I do or get it done the exact way I think it should be done. So I have to rely on myself. The truth is, despite my confident exterior, I don’t really believe that I’m going to do it right either. And if you make the mistake of thinking I can do it, then how dumb are you? Which just proves I can’t trust your judgment and I better do everything myself.” (114-5) She tells everybody everything she finds out or conjectures and pulls major TSTLs-- breaking and entering, destroying chain of evidence more than once, and nearly getting herself killed three times. Other characters are fairly standard--gay sidekick, detective friend, detective enemy, boss who doesn’t understand her, boss’s hostile wife, snotty receptionist.

Sense of place is good but not outstanding. Knowing the nature of small towns, it’s hard to believe that so much has been going on under the surface for so many years without there being “in town” gossip. After all, as Franklin said, three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. My biggest complaint is the lack of commas, particularly in setting off nouns of direct address.

DANGEROUS HABITS is worth the time. (B+)

THREE, THREE, THE RIVALS is one of Anthea Fraser’s DCI Dvid Webb mysteries set in Shillingham, in Broadshire. It was originally published in 1992 and was reissued in e-book format in 2015.

When Billy Makepeace, elderly magistrate and church warden, is found dead in the canal in Erlesborough, the small county town in which David Webb grew up, murder becomes literally a family affair for Webb. The day before his murder, Makepeace heard Webb’s sister Sheila tell friends about her experience seeing a ghost rise out of a grave in the cemetery. Makepeace’s only known enemies were Dick Vernon and John Webb, DCI Webb’s father. Dick Vernon had disappeared forty years ago, the same day Sheila saw the ghost; John Webb has been dead several years. Nobody knew the origin of the feud, which has been carried down to the present generation--Sheila and David Webb, Tom and Larry Vernon, and Jenny Makepeace had been forbidden to speak, much less date. So Webb faces questions from his own and his family’s past en route to solving Vernon’s disappearance and Makepeace’s murder.

Fraser does a neat job of producing a surprise, yet believable killer where none seems possible. Webb concentrates on his past almost as much as on the cases. “As he called these people to mind, most of whom he’d known all his life, it occurred to Webb that this exercise, no less than last night’s visit to the barn, was part of his exorcism of the past. During the last week he’d come to realize that all his life he’d seen Erlesborough and everything connected with it through a distorting mirror. As he’d gone about his inquiries his memories, both painful and happy, had, against this will, been shaken up and fallen back into a slightly different pattern. A split viewpoint had been thrust before him, the memory of a child’s impressions melded with adult perception. It had forced him to re-examine, compare, contrast, and he now saw that nothing had been as clear-cut, as black and white, as he had supposed.” Other characters are realistic.

Sense of place is well-developed. “Erlesborough lay due west of Shillingham, some fifteen miles along the Oxbury Road. It was a pleasant little market town, mainly Georgian in architecture but with roots going back to Roman times and beyond. A Benedictine abbey had once occupied the site and its ruins still stood in the gardens behind the High Street, a haven of peace and greenery only steps from the bustling marketplace... The fields and woodlands through which they had been driving fell away behind them as they entered the outskirts of the town. To the left of the road stood the buildings and playing fields of St Anne’s School, traditional rivals of Shillingham’s Ashbourne. Then the road curved fround past a large supermarket, ...and into the wide High Street where, on this Wednesday morning, the market was in full swing.”

THREE, THREE, THE RIVALS is another excellent read in this long-running series. (A-)

NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE is the second book in Paul Gitsham’s mystery series featuring DCI Warren Jones. It was released in e-book format in 2014.

Gitsham has created a believable body of police officers in the Middlesbury, Hertfordshire, CID where the active investigative head is DCI Warren Jones. Turning 38 years old during NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE, Jones is young for his position, and he’s been in Middlesbury for less than a year. He’s jelled well with the existing forces, especially DI Tony Sutton, who’d expected to get his job; Jones does a good job of recognizing his team members’ strengths and weaknesses and providing them with mentors. Crime detection is very much a team effort, with Jones held responsible for a successful outcome: “...Warren felt a wave of hopelessness washing over him. Two murders and an attempted murder and his team seemed to be hitting dead ends at every turn. And everyone was looking to him for inspiration. For the first time since since taking his new post in the summer, Warren found himself wishing he could turn back the clock to the days when he was just one of a team of detective inspectors working in the comfort of the big West Midlands Police Service; free to get on with his job, safely insulated from the politics and the pressures by a layer of DCIs and Detective Superintendents. Snap out of it, he commanded himself, feeling revulsion at his self-pity. You wanted this promotion and now, after a few late nights, you want to give up?” Gitsham gives enough of their personal lives to make his characters realistic.

The plot in NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE is fairly straight forward. Richard Cameron, sentenced in 1998 to eighteen years in prison for a series of rapes, is released in December 2010 on parole. He goes to live with his son Michael. A year later begins another series of rapes, following Cameron’s identical MO, except the victims have been strangled. Cameron and son alibi each other. The first two victims have boyfriends with records; a vicious attack on a prostitute is blamed on a disgruntled john; but the rapes and murders continue. Forensics turns up little evidence. Gitsham does an outstanding job of arranging a surprise ending though a careful reader may discern it early.

Gitsham creates a good sense of place. “The village [Stennfield] was tiny, with only one main thoroughfare. Built before the age of the motor car, the winding street was barely wide enough for Warren’s Mondeo. Navigation was made harder by the double-parked cars crowding the road. Small cottages without front gardens made widening the road impossible and large warning signs had been erected at the entrance of the village diverting lorries and other large vehicles... The church was easily visible, its small spire overshadowing the one- and two-storey buildings that made up much of the high street. Driving slowly, Warren passed all of the essential ingredients of a small rural English village. Two pubs faced each other uneasily across the road, both with wooden chalkboards advertising hot food and real ale, in a benign form of one-upmanship that neither seemed to win outright. The Fighting Cock had a quiz on a Tuesday night...whilst The White Bull had bingo and curry on a Thursday. Never a dull moment in Steenfield, Warren noted wryly.”

NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE is a strong book in a strong series, highly recommended. (A-)

Karen Guttridge’s KALIMERA SQUID! AN EXPAT IN CYPRUS was published in free or inexpensive e-book format in 2015.

I loved Peter Mayle’s A YEAR IN PROVENCE, Frances Mays’s UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, and Carol Drinkwater’s Olive Farm series, so I expected to enjoy Guttridge’s take on moving to Cyprus, a country with which I’m unfamiliar. However, I’m giving up at 17%.

Themes are very similar to those covered in the older books: problems with builders, with water supply, with heating and cooling, with language and customs. Gutteridge does almost no characterization, not even introducing the three children, young teens when the story opens on 9/11. All we know about her husband Pete is that he’s an airline pilot who takes early retirement and who doesn’t speak Greek. She’s a former fitness nstructor who came up with a lifestyle plan to help her clients control their weight. The move is stretched out over the course of years, so there’s little dramatic impact. Style of writing is much more journalistic than sensory, so there’s not much sense of place.

No grade because not finished. KALIMERA SQUID! was a big disappointment.

NIGHTMARES CAN BE MURDER is the first book in Mary Kennedy’s projected Dream Club cosy mystery series. It was published in e-book format in 2014.

Taylor Blake is the first person narrator, an older sister, MBA Wharton, a 32-year-old freelance business consultant specializing in turnarounds in Fortune 500 companies. She is in Savannah, Georgia, to help younger sister Allison vitalize her vintage candy shop Oldies but Goodies. Ali is more New Age, into dreams and their interpretation, and belongs to a group of mostly older women, the Dream Club. One of its members reports dreaming the death of a dark-haired man, and Chico Hernandez, owner and manager of a Latin dance studio across the street, is found dead the next day. Since Ali lives in an apartment above the store, she and Taylor are the ones to whom Gina, Chico’s assistant and a member of the Dream Club, turns. Samantha Stiles, the Savannah PD detective who catches the call on Chico, occasionally attends the Dream Club with a friend; she’d heard about the dream.

I’m giving up at 25% read. The writing style is simplistic with the exposition of the Dream Club members both too long and too incomplete. There’s little sense of the women as individuals. Except for blatant curiosity Taylor has no reason to become involved in the investigation of Chico’s murder--she’d only met him once. It’s not clear how old Ali is supposed to be. She’s referred to as younger, Taylor comments on assuming a parental role when their parents died some ten years before and Ali’s been through five career changes since leaving art school. Yet Taylor acts towards Ali as if she’s a teenager. Neither sister moves beyond the stereotype.

What bothers me most is that one of the most distinctive settings in the United States is virtually ignored. Admittedly, what I know about Savannah, Georgia, is based largely on MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL and Paula Deen, but the city seems to have a distinctive ambiance. Besides naming the city, the Southernisms include “bless your heart” and sweet tea. Nobody sounds Southern, including the elderly Harper twins who’ve run a flower shop Petals in Savannah for over fifty years. This is admittedly a pet peeve, but people who can’t do Southern (or Western, or Jewish, or whatever) shouldn’t try to use it for a setting.

No grade because not finished.

Can you review this book please. http://www.amazon.com/Suspended-Upo...324618&sr=8-1&keywords=suspended+upon+nothing