Janet Evanovich – Wicked Appetite
Release Date: Sept 14 2010
Summary;
Life in Marblehead has had a pleasant predictability, until Diesel arrives. Rumor has it that a collection of priceless ancient relics representing the Seven Deadly Sins have made their way to Boston’s North Shore. Partnered with pastry chef Lizzie Tucker, Diesel bullies and charms his way through historic Salem to track them down—and his criminal mastermind cousin Gerewulf Grimorie. The black-haired, black-hearted Wulf is on the hunt for the relic representing gluttony. Caught in a race against time, Diesel and Lizzie soon find out that more isn’t always better, as they battle Wulf and the first of the deadly sins.
With delectable characters and non-stop thrills that have made Janet Evanovich a household name, Wicked Appetite will leave you hungry for more.
Susan Wittig Albert: The Tale of Oat Cake Crag
Release Date: Sept 7 2010
Summary;
Albert’s charming seventh Beatrix Potter tale (after 2009’s The Tale of Applebeck Orchard) finds Beatrix at Hill Top Farm in the Lake District, where she has taken refuge from her parents, who she knows will disapprove of her secret engagement to solicitor Will Heelis just as they disapproved of her engagement six years earlier to her editor, Norman Warne, who died before the two could marry. Meanwhile, Beatrix and the local birds and animals, including a teenage dragon, must put up with “a beastly fly-swimming spluttering aeroplane” that’s been careering up and down Lake Windemere. More upsetting is the serious injury to Fred L. Baum, one of the plane’s developers, who’s found by Rascal, a popular Jack Russell terrier, at the bottom of Oat Cake Crag. The mystery element may be mild, but Albert does a fine job of recreating the wistful, nostalgic mood of Potter’s children’s books.
Lisa Bork: For Richer, For Danger
Release Date: Sept 1 2010
Summary;
In Agatha-finalist Bork’s winning second Broken Vows mystery set in New York’s Finger Lakes region (after 2009’s For Better, for Murder), Jolene Parker and her police deputy husband, Ray, have survived near divorce, but may lose the infant daughter they hope to adopt, Noelle, because the bank-robbing fugitive birth mother, who called herself Abigail Bryce, was using a 17-year-old dead girl’s identity, rendering all the adoption paperwork worthless. Jolene eventually catches up with the false Abigail in a parking lot, where she’s holding a broken beer bottle over her dying boyfriend, who’s bleeding from a neck wound. Meanwhile, Jolene must strive to keep her floundering sports car boutique and repair business afloat. When a millionaire summer resident promises a substantial finder’s fee for tracking down a specific car for his wife’s grandfather, the need for cash outweighs the weirdness of knowing the car will be used as the grandfather’s coffin. The various plot lines wind neatly to a bittersweet conclusion.
Rhys Bowen: Royal Blood
Release Date: Sept 7 2010
Summary;
Agatha-winner Bowen successfully mixes Wodehousian farce with a whodunit plot in her fourth 1930s mystery starring Lady Georgiana Rannoch (after 2009’s Royal Flush). When the queen asks Georgiana, a distant relative of George V, to attend the wedding of a royal cousin and old schoolmate, Princess Maria Theresa, in Romania, the impoverished 22-year-old must scramble to come up with a maid to maintain appearances. She ends up with Queenie Hepplewhite, a clumsy if well-meaning servant who lost a previous job after setting fire to her mistress’s clothing. Once in Romania, the pair find themselves in the midst of a sensitive murder case at the remote castle where the nuptials are to take place. Field Marshal Pirin, head of the Bulgarian army and a close adviser to his country’s king, collapses during a festive meal and is later found to have been poisoned. Bowen once again demonstrates her mastery of the light, romantic mystery.
James Patterson & Howard Roughan: Don’t Blink
Release Date: Sept 27 2010
Summary;
The good
New York’s Lombardo’s Steak House is famous for three reasons–the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police’s fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.
The bad
Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad-boy. In the chaos, he accidentally captures a key piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of an all-out war between Italian and Russian mafia forces. NYPD captains, district attorneys, mayoral candidates, media kingpins, and one shockingly beautiful magazine editor are all pushing their own agendas–on both sides of the law.
And the dead
Back off–or die–is the clear message Nick receives as he investigates for a story of his own. Heedless, and perhaps in love with his beautiful editor, Nick endures humiliation, threats, violence, and worse in a thriller that overturns every expectation and finishes with the kind of flourish only James Patterson knows.
Rita Mae Brown: A Nose for Justice
Release Date: Sept 21 2010
Summary;
Explosive sabotage and the startling unearthing of a hundred-year-old skeleton on a Nevada ranch thrillingly start off this debut novel in a tail-wagging new series from New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown.
With the ruins of her high-powered Wall Street job now far in the rearview mirror of her rented silver Camaro, thirty-two-year-old Mags Rogers arrives at her great-aunt Jeep’s sprawling Wings Ranch to reassemble her life. In the passenger seat, with his suspicious nose to a cracked window, is Mags’s beloved wirehaired dachshund, the urbane Baxter.
Mags was named for her great-aunt, Magdalena—though everyone calls the spry octogenarian rancher Jeep. From piloting planes in World War II to discovering one of America’s largest gold deposits, Jeep has enjoyed a lifetime jam-packed with love and adventure, and she’s not done yet. At her side—to Baxter’s low-down distress—is Jeep’s loyal German Shepherd mix, King. The growlings are mutual: King sniffs that Baxter is a “fuzzy sausage.”
Meanwhile, someone pipe-bombs Red Rock Valley’s pumping station, endangering the water supply near and far. Deputy Pete Meadows links the sabotage to a string of local murders, but he doesn’t yet know if it’s a corporate plot or twisted eco-terrorism. He’s also called out to Wings Ranch when human bones are dug up in Jeep’s barn; the dead man’s ring identifies him as an elite Russian military officer from the late 1800s, apparently knifed to death. In her search to find out whodunit, Mags uncovers fascinating history about Jeep’s ranch, including an intriguing connection to Buffalo Bill.
Mags and Pete have mysteries to solve, among them why they are so drawn to each other. Baxter and King team up when it comes time to protect their humans. And all the while, Jeep Reed, the sassiest wit in the West, has a bold plan for Red Rock Valley in which they all will play a part.
Mary Daheim: Loco Motive
Release Date: Sept 7 2010
Summary;
It’s autumn at Hillside Manor B&B, and with the changing leaves come some unexpected guests. There’s Judith’s son and daughter-in-law, with their two children in tow, a couple with an impossible (and unbelievable?) last name who show up from nowhere, and a pair of giggly young women who don’t seem to know where they’re going.
As Halloween draws nigh, Judith can barely cope with her gala of guests, but at least the worst guest from the first part of the week checks out—almost permanently. Wee Willie Weevil, infamous daredevil and martial-arts movie icon, insisted on performing his dangerous stunts from Judith’s roof and left the B&B via an ambulance.
Hoping to escape the domestic mayhem, Judith agrees to accompany Renie on a cross-country train trip to Boston with first-class accommodations on the Empire Builder. Judith’s bubble bursts when she discovers that Wee Willie and his entourage are fellow travelers. Although confined to a wheelchair, the diminutive stunt man seems capable of derailing the cousins’ vacation.
Cousin Renie does her best to ease Judith’s mind until the train collides with a truckload of sugar beets. Forced to wait for a new engine in a small Montana town in the middle of nowhere, the passengers can do nothing but watch and wait. Even before the train can get back on track, the cousins discover that their sleeper attendant has gone missing. Worse yet, another passenger’s final destination is the nearest morgue.
Judith and Renie have to move full speed ahead if they want to blow the whistle on the killer before death strikes again. Can the train continue its journey? Will the cousins ever get to Boston? Stay aboard!
Sue Ann Jaffarian: Murder in Vein
Release Date: Sept 1 2010
Summary;
The sight of the blood covered fangs exploded from her deep memory like a ball through a plate glass window. The man had bitten Bobby, torn into him like a barbequed rib on the Fourth of July.
Vampires. Vam-pires. Real live—er, dead (undead?)—bloodsucking vampires, living in the City of Angels. Madison Rose, a street-smart twenty-something waitress would never have believed it—until a vampire thwarts a vicious attack against her by appearing in the nick of time and finishing off her assailant in one tasty bite.
Madison has been saved by the vampires—or has she? She learns that women have been going missing; their lifeless bodies turning up drained of blood. Now the murderer is after her. As the violence escalates, Madison, LAPD Detective Notchey, and a cadre of alluring and dangerous vampires search for the true killer—while Madison keeps a wary eye on the skittish and thirsty vampires. Will she survive to see the light of day?
William Kent Krueger: Vermillion Drift
Release Date: Sept 7 2010
Summary;
At the start of Krueger’s superlative 10th novel featuring Tamarack County, Minn., PI Cork O’Connor (after Heaven’s Keep), mining heir Max Cavanagh hires Cork to trace his missing sister, Lauren, founder of an artists’ retreat–and to try to identify the sender of threatening letters to various people connected with Vermilion One, a Cavanaugh family mine, which the U.S. Department of Energy is considering for long-term nuclear waste storage. When Cork and a mine official descend into Vermilion One, they discover six bodies, five of them skeletal, which may be connected with a decades-old unsolved series of crimes known as “the Vanishings,” which Cork’s father looked into when he was sheriff. The sixth corpse, that of a well-dressed woman, appears to have been in the mine about a week. Rock-solid prose combines with effective characterizations and a logical if complex plot for a thrilling read. This book succeeds on every level and ought to attract the author a deservingly wide readership.
Sara Paretsky: Body Work
Release Date: Sept 1 2010
Summary;
Paretsky’s superb 14th novel featuring PI V.I. Warshawski (after Hardball) delves into Chicago’s avant-garde art scene. At the trendy Club Gouge, where Warshawski is keeping an eye on Petra, a young cousin who caused trouble in the previous book, performance artist Karen Buckley (aka the Body Artist) invites members of the audience to step on stage to paint her nude body. The intricate design that one woman paints on Karen’s back provokes a violent outburst from Chad Vishneski, a troubled Iraqi war veteran. When two nights later, someone shoots the woman who upset Chad outside the club, Chad is the logical murder suspect. Hired by Chad’s estranged parents to clear his name, Warshawski straddles a minefield that reaches from the Windy City’s neighborhoods to the Gulf War battlefields. Scenes with her aging neighbor and a new love interest give a much needed balance to the serious plot. This strong outing shows why the tough, fiercely independent, dog-loving private detective continues to survive.
Louise Penny: Bury Your Dead
Release Date: Sept 28 2010
Summary;
It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong. But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society— where an obsessive historian’s quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly 400 years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it?
Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. “It doesn’t make sense,” Olivier’s partner writes every day. “He didn’t do it, you know.” As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.
Spencer Quinn (aka Peter Abrahams): To Fetch a Thief
Release Date: Sept 28 2010
Summary;
When Peanut, the elephant star of the Drummond Family Traveling Circus, goes missing, along with elephant tamer Uri DeLeath, Uri’s tearful clown partner, Popo, seeks the help of canine detective Chet the Jet and Chet’s human partner in cracking crimes, Bernie Little of the Little Detective Agency, in Quinn’s terrific third Chet and Bernie mystery set in “the Valley” of an unnamed Western state (after January 2010’s Thereby Hangs a Tail). Sgt. Rick Torres of Missing Persons adds his considerable expertise, but it’s Chet’s fearless nose for clues that leads them on a strange odyssey that becomes downright hairy after Uri’s found dead in the desert from the bite of an illegal African puff adder. Quinn, the pseudonym of suspense author Peter Abrahams (End of Story), radiates pure comedic genius via Chet’s doggy bright narrative. You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy this deliciously addictive series.
Hannah Reed (aka Deb Baker): Buzz Off
Release Date: Sept 7 2010
Summary;
It’s September – National Honey Month – in Moraine, Wisconsin. After her mentor in the honey business is found suspiciously stung to death in his apiary, beekeeper Story Fischer must sort through a swarm of suspects, including her ex-husband.
Peggy Webb: Elvis and the Memphis Mambo Murders
Release Date: Sept 28 2010
Summary;
In Webb’s wacky third Southern Cousins mystery (after 2009’s Elvis and the Grateful Dead), beautician Callie Valentine Jones swings into sleuth mode with her sidekick, cousin Lovie, after a participant in a dance contest, Babs Mabry Mims, takes a fatal fall over a concrete parapet at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Next, Callie discovers another contestant, Gloria Divine, drowned in the hotel’s fountain, and shortly afterward someone attacks Ruby Nell in her room. Callie worries that her mother’s dance partner, Thomas Whitenton, who’s acting mighty suspiciously, could be the killer. Complicating matters is the resurfacing of Jack Jones, Callie’s estranged husband. While Jack’s protective instincts are helpful, Callie hates how his mysterious job as an “international consultant” interferes with their marriage. Elvis, the detecting basset hound, continues to be the saving grace of this sometimes cute, sometimes corny cozy series.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
