In Castle Shade, Laurie R. King’s 17th Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes crime fiction novel, the couple is asked by Queen Marie of Romania to investigate a threat made against her daughter, which requires Russell and Holmes to travel to Castle Bran in Transylvania. What could go wrong?
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Early in Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, protagonist Jacob Finch Bonner encounters a student in his writing class who claims he has a can’t-miss story. The student was right—sort of. Upon learning of the student’s death—and determining that the book was never written—Jacob, um, appropriates the plot. What could be the harm of using an idea that never became a book? And after all who owns a plot, anyway? But then the book becomes a runaway bestseller and the person to whom the story belongs is not happy…
Photo of Jean Hanff Korelitz ©Michael Avedon
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Being a professional thief with a skill set that includes safecracking and lock picking does not preclude you from being a patriot, or so protagonist Ellie McDonnell finds out in Ashley Weaver’s A Peculiar Combination, when she’s asked to ply her trade for Britain’s war effort in World War Two
Photo of Ashley Weaver ©Amelia Lea
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All the World’s a Stage in Death of a Showman, Mariah Fredericks’ fourth installment of her series featuring lady’s maid Jane Prescott. After returning from what can only be called a working trip to Europe with her employers Louise and William Tyler, Jane finds that being involved with a new theatrical production with former beau Leo Hirschfeld, can be absolute murder
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In The Consequences of Fear, the 16th installment of Jacqueline Winspear’s addictive series featuring detective and frequent intelligence asset Maisie Dobbs, it’s October 1941: Europe has succumbed to Nazi occupation and the outcome of Maisie’s new case, involving a murder that a 12-year-old message-runner witnesses, has the potential to upend the British war effort
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Sheriff Lily Ross returns in The Stills, the third installment of Jess Montgomery’s series that takes place in 1920s Prohibition Era Southeastern Ohio. Trouble is, um, brewing and Lily couldn’t be busier: violations of the Volstead Act are everywhere—Lily’s best friend has rekindled her still; Lily’s own mother is reconstituting dried grapes and letting them ferment. These infractions pale in comparison, though, to what George Vogel, the regional crime kingpin, has in mind…
Photo of Jess Montgomery ©JP Ball Photography
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In An Extravagant Death, Charles Finch—who concluded the prequel trilogy of his protagonist Charles Lenox with 2020’s The Last Passenger—returns Lenox to his current timeline of the late 1870s and takes England’s most famous private detective on a road trip (an ocean voyage, actually) to America. There’s a murder and a wealthy denizen of Gilded Era Newport, RI, calls on Lenox…
Photo of Charles Finch ©Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
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In Water Memory, Daniel Pyne’s new thriller, in the aftermath of a particularly violent operation in which she sustained a concussion, private security contractor Aubrey Sentro decides to follow a doctor’s advice and go on a cruise. Not just any cruise, but a jaunt down the east coast of the U.S. to South America on a freighter. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, until the ship is boarded by pirates and Aubrey needs to call on her considerable black op skills while coping with yawning gaps in her short-term memory
Photo of Daniel Pyne ©Katie Pyne
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In 1943, Sweden’s neutrality came with air quotes and a wary eye on Germany. In The Historians, Cecilia Ekbäck’s recently published historical mystery, Sweden was rife with dangerous crosscurrents that young, well-connected Laura Dalgren gets caught up in when Britta Hallberg—her best friend from university—is found murdered. Did Britta sign her own death warrant with what she wrote about in her post-grad thesis?
Photo of Cecilia Ekbäck ©Sean Gannon
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Eve Ronin, the intriguing, engaging protagonist of Lee Goldberg’s new procedural series, is back in Bone Canyon. In the Lost Hills jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Eve is investigating how fire has a way of revealing what might otherwise stay hidden…including murder
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