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A trace of smoke
Rebecca Cantrell.
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300 p. ; 25 cm.
Starred Review. Cantrell's debut offers up a grittily realistic portrayal of 1930s Berlin as the Nazis come to power. While covering her usual crime beat, newspaper reporter Hannah Vogel unexpectedly spots a photo of her brother Ernst in the Alexanderplatz Police Station on a wall displaying pictures of the unclaimed dead. Ernst had been living a high-profile life as a gay man, performing in a cabaret and exposing himself to danger by associating with known Nazis. Though barely getting by in a time when money and resources are scarce, Hannah risks it all by launching a solo investigation to find her brother's murderer. She is unable to confide in even her closest friends lest they be targeted by corrupt police or Nazis. Keeping the suspense high, Cantrell does an excellent job of projecting the fear of the time through her characters. Sure to appeal to fans of Alan Furst and other noir historical thrillers; strongly recommended.Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The unfinished clue
Georgette Heyer.
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321 p. ; 18 cm.
When Sir Arthur Billington-Smith, an abusive wretch hated by everyone from his disinherited son to his wife's stoic would-be lover, is found stabbed to death, no one is particularly grieved and no one has an alibi. The unhappy guests find themselves under the scrutiny of Scotland Yard's coll-headed Inspector Harding, who has solved tough cases before but this time, the talented inspector discovers much more than he has bargained for.
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The way home : a novel
George Pelecanos.
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323 p. ; 25 cm.
Christopher Flynn is trying to get it right. After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past. One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back. Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.
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The Westminster poisoner
Susanna Gregory.
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472 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.
After the Puritan ban on Christmas festivities, Restoration London is awash with excess between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night, but the two men found in Westminster Hall had not died from a surfeit of gluttony, but from poison. The Lord Chancellor appoints Chaloner as his investigator into the killings, believing them to be of scant importance to the affairs of state he deals with. But Chaloner reveals a stinking seam of corruption in the Palace of White Hall, where even the Queen is a victim to the greed of courtiers and functionaries. And the pickings are so rich that men are prepared to go to any lengths to save their own skins and their stolen fortunes.
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Whispers of the dead
Simon Beckett.
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307 p. ; 24 cm.
A field of corpses, laid out in a macabre display…A serial killer who confounds even the most seasoned profilers…A doctor whose life has been shattered by crime—plunged into the heart of a shocking investigation… In this masterful new novel by Simon Beckett, #1 internationally bestselling author ofWritten in BoneandThe Chemistry of Death,forensic anthropologist David Hunter is thrust into his first murder investigation on U.S. soil—and his most devastating case yet. In the heat of a Tennessee summer, Dr. Hunter has come to Knoxville’s legendary “Body Farm”—the infamous field laboratory where law enforcement personnel study real corpses—to escape London and the violence that nearly destroyed his life. He’s also here to find out if he’s still up to the job of sorting through death in all its strange and terrible forms.… Hunter will soon find his answer when he’s called to a crime scene in a remote Smoky Mountain cabin—a scene as grisly as it is bizarre. The body is taped to a table. Everything about the crime scene—the wounds, the decomposition, the microscopic evidence—quickly short-circuits the tools and methods of forensic experts. Within days, Hunter knows he’s dealing with a serial killer, someone intimately familiar with the intricacies of forensics. All around him, egos and hierarchies clash—from the boasts of a renowned criminal profiler to the dogged work of a young female investigator—but fate keeps pushing Hunter further into the heart of the manhunt. And the killer keeps coming up with surprises: booby-trapping corpses, faking times of death, swapping bodies—finally turning his sights on after Hunter himself.… An electrifying race against time, a fascinating journey into the world of forensic science, and a terrifying portrait of a killer in love with death itself,Whispers of the Deadis a thriller of the highest order.
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Wicked prey
John Sandford.
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402 p. ; 24 cm.
Danger stalks Lucas Davenport at work and all too close to home when petty thief and paraplegic Randy Whitcomb targets Lucas's pretty fourteen-year-old adopted daughter and a young man with the .50 caliber sniper rifle and the right-wing-crazy background roams through the city filled with the most powerful politicians on earth . . . .
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