Darkside by Belinda Bauer

Title: Darkside
Author: Belinda Bauer
ISBN: 9781451612752
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2011
Paperback, 304 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: The sounds of the hospital came back to Lucy muffled and from far away.

It is midwinter, and with the small English village of Shipcott on the verge of being cut off by unending snow, everyone is shocked by the murder of an elderly woman lying defenseless in her bed.

Young police constable Jonas Holly is deemed too inexperienced to handle the investigation, so Detective Chief Inspector John Marvel is brought in from the city to handle things. The abrasive DCI seems to be good for nothing but cruel jokes and insufferable cosmopolitan condescension, but Jonas does his best to stay out of the way and ignore the slights.

Then a series of sinister anonymous notes puts him right back in the middle of the case. Jonas believes someone in the village is laughing at him. Someone blames him for the old woman's death. Someone thinks he's not doing his job correctly... and seems to know every move he makes.

Bauer's first book, Blacklands, is one of the most memorable novels I read last year. With her second she once again proves her skill at crafting a book that shouldn't be read after dark. Like its predecessor, Darkside will have you listening for creaking floorboards and feeling the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.

Each character in Darkside is limned in mercury, and as each characterization joins the beads of previous ones, the reader's unease grows. Jonas Holly cares deeply about protecting the people of the villages he patrols, but more than anything he wants to save his beautiful young wife, Lucy, who is slowly succumbing to the ravages of multiple sclerosis. Lucy entertains herself with horror movies and tries her best to stay strong for her terrified husband. DCI Marvel is getting nowhere with his investigation; his condescension has done an excellent job of closing village doors in his face. Marvel begins drinking too much and shouting at everyone until he's universally hated.

Bauer is masterful at bending characterization and atmosphere to her will. However, the more I read, the more a nagging feeling refused to go away. When I reached the end of the novel, I wasn't shocked. That nagging feeling of mine was a hunch proven correct. Instead of a "Grand Slam" ending that left me at a loss for words, I felt slightly manipulated. The story is brilliantly plotted, but never once did I lose myself in it. Instead of feeling the writer's power as each page turned, my mind was analyzing and deducing as the paragraphs flowed by.

Will that tiny disappointment keep me from reading future books by Belinda Bauer? Of course not! Darkside is a beautifully written, enjoyable novel, and I have a feeling that her next book will knock my socks off.

Darkside at Amazon.

Darkside at The Book Depository.

Darkside at Your Favorite Indie.

May 2011 New Mystery Releases!

In between bouts of cooking and going through all the books in my library, I've been spending a couple of hours each day sitting in the back garden enjoying the breeze, the fountains, the flowers, and some very good books. And you all know that if you read two excellent books in a row, you've just gotta get your hands on more!

The following books are being released during the month of May, and they're on my wish list. Maybe they're on yours, too.

The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book spots.  I hope one or two of these titles have you drooling, too!

===May 1===

Title: Frozen Charlotte
Author: Priscilla Masters
Series: #3 in the Coroner Martha Gunn series set in Shrewsbury, England
ISBN: 9780727880062
Publisher: Severn House
Hardcover, 208 pages

"When a woman arrives in Accident and Emergency clutching a child in a pink blanket, Martha Gunn is not quite ready to make the discovery that the evening has in store for her. The baby is dead, and not only that, it has been mummified. Post mortem reveals the child to be a new born, deceased for over five years and, despite the mysterious woman’s protestations that it is called ‘poppy’,  most certainly a boy. As always coroner Martha Gunn reserves judgement until she is able to get to the bottom of the case."

Title: The Durham Deception
Author: Philip Gooden
Series: #2 in the Thomas Ansell series set in Victorian England
ISBN: 9780727869951
Publisher: Severn House
Hardcover, 256 pages

"Second in the gripping new 19th century ‘Cathedral’ murder mystery series from the acclaimed author of the ‘Nick Revill’ mysteries - For the newly-weds Tom and Helen Ansell life is no honeymoon, as they are drawn into a murky underworld of Victorian spiritualism and stage magic when they’re sent on a mission to the stunning cathedral city of Durham. Not only must they investigate Helen’s Aunt Julia, who has mysteriously fallen for a medium, but also solve the riddle of the sinister Lucknow dagger. Until suddenly things go from bad to worse when a body turns up and Helen herself is accused of murder."

===May 3===

Title: The House at Sea's End
Author: Elly Griffiths
Series: #3 in the Ruth Galloway series set in England
ISBN: 9780771036002
Publisher: McClelland and Stewart
Hardcover, 368 pages

*UK Release

"Shoreline erosion at the village of Broughton Sea's End has revealed the skeletons of six men, their arms bound. From the mineral content of their bones, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway can tell that they were all Germans. Most likely, DCI Harry Nelson reckons, they were killed by the local Home Guard when they tried to land during the Second World War. This is just the first complication in a story brimming with surprise twists, not all of them stemming from these murders."

Title: Spider Web
Author: Earlene Fowler
Series: #15 in the Benni Harper series set in central California
ISBN: 9780425240984
Publisher: Berkley Hardcover
Hardcover, 320 pages

"The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for her loved ones, especially her police chief husband. Benni is determined to make her hometown safe-before their peaceful street fair becomes a day to remember in the worst way."

Title: Flowerbed of State
Author: Dorothy St. James
Series: #1 in the White House Gardener series
ISBN: 9780425240571
Publisher: Berkley
Paperback, 320 pages

"Cassandra 'Casey' Calhoun's passion for gardening has carried her to President's Park on which sits the White House. But when she finds a dead body in a trash can, Casey has to root out a killer before she ends up planted herself."

Title: Darkside
Author: Belinda Bauer
Standalone
ISBN: 9781451612752
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Paperback, 304 pages

"In bleak midwinter, the people of Shipcott are shocked by the murder of an elderly woman in her bed. As snow cuts off the village, local policeman Jonas Holly is torn between catching a brutal killer and protecting his vulnerable wife, Lucy.

When the inquiry is commandeered by an abrasive senior detective, Jonas finds himself derided by his colleagues and ashamed to admit to Lucy that he’s been sidelined. It seems his first murder investigation may be over before it’s begun. But when he receives a series of increasingly sinister anonymous notes, Jonas is thrust back into the center of the case. Someone in the village is taunting him, blaming him for the tragedy. Someone thinks he’s not doing his job; someone seems to know every move he makes. And soon Jonas has to ask: Who’s hunting who?"

Title: Devil's Plaything
Author: Matt Richtel
Series: #2 in the Nate Idle medical journalist series
ISBN: 9781590588871
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 250 pages

"Medical journalist Nate Idle has stumbled onto an extraordinary conspiracy and the ultimate mind game. Suddenly, in pursuit of the truth, he's running for his life through the shadows of Silicon Valley, a human lab animal caught in a deadly maze of neurotechnology and institutional paranoia. And his survival rests entirely in the hands of his eighty-five-year old grandmother, Lane, who’s suffering from dementia, and can't remember the secret at the heart of the world-changing conspiracy."

===May 10===

Title: These Dark Things

Author: Jan Merete Weiss

Series: #1 in the Captain Natalia Monte series set in Naples, Italy

ISBN: 9781569479384

Publisher: Soho Crime

Hardcover, 217 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

"When a beautiful college student is found murdered in the catacombs beneath a monastary, Captain Natalia Monte of the Carabinieri is assigned to investigate. Could the killer be a professor the student had been sleeping with? A blind monk who loved her? Or perhaps a member of the brutal Napali criminal organization, the Camorra? As Natalia pursues her investigation, the crime families of Naples go to war over garbage-hauling contracts; and all across the city heaps of trash pile up, uncollected. When one of Natalia's childhood friends is caught up in the violence, her loyalties are tested, and each move she makes threatens her own life and the lives of those she loves."

===May 12===

Title: The End of the Wasp Season

Author: Denise Mina

Series: #2 in the Alex Morrow series set in Glasgow, Scotland

ISBN: 9781409100966

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co.

Paperback, 416 pages

*UK Release.

"When notorious millionaire banker Lars Anderson hangs himself from the old oak tree in front of his Kent mansion his death attracts no sympathy. One less shark is little loss to a world nursing a financial hangover. But the legacy of a life time of self-serving is widespread, the carnage most acute among those he ought to be protecting: his family. He leaves behind two deeply damaged children and a broken wife. Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered in her home. The genteel community is stunned by what appears a vicious, random attack. When DS Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is called in to investigate, she soon discovers that behind the murder lurks a tangled web of lies. A web that will spiral through the local community, through Scotland and ultimately right back to a swinging rope hundreds of miles away. The End of the Wasp Season is an accomplished, compelling and multi-layered novel, which traces the damaging consequences of one man's selfish actions in a world ravaged by recession and questioning everything it previously held sacred."

Wow! What a great month for mysteries, eh? I can't wait to get my hands on these. How about you?

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Title: Blacklands
Author: Belinda Bauer
ISBN: 9781439149447, Simon & Schuster, 2010
Genre: Thriller
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: Exmoor dripped with dirty bracken, rough, colorless grass, prickly gorse, and last year's heather, so black it looked as if wet fire had swept across the landscape, taking the trees with it and leaving the moor cold and exposed to face the winter unprotected.

Twenty years ago, Stephen Lamb's Uncle Billy disappeared, never to return. Since Uncle Billy was eleven and serial killer/ pedophile Arnold Avery was trolling the moors at the time, it was assumed that Billy fell prey to Avery.

Twenty years later, Stephen Lamb's grandmother is still waiting at the window for her son to return. Twelve-year-old Stephen is sick to death of having to deal with the nasty tempers of his grandmother and mother; he's tired of being followed around by his five-year-old brother; he doesn't want to smell like mildew anymore; and if the school bullies left him alone, he would think he'd won the biggest lottery ever.

In his mind, everything went to pot when Uncle Billy disappeared. If he could only find Billy, his grandmother would stop waiting for his return, and maybe-- just maybe-- life might become more livable. With that in mind, Stephen takes a shovel out to the moor and digs hole after hole after hole. Uncle Billy has to be there somewhere. He finally comes to the conclusion that he needs help in finding Uncle Billy's remains, and who is the only person qualified to help? That's right: Arnold Avery. So begins a correspondence that's enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

This book does not read like a first novel. Bauer does an excellent job of portraying how tragedy has affected this family and to what lengths young Stephen will go to have even the slightest bit of normality in his life. Three quarters of the book is very quiet and very very powerful; however, the ending is a bit far-fetched and dilutes that intensity.

Regardless of the ending, I am still very impressed by this story. Young Stephen Lamb remains crystal clear in my mind, and I will keep an eye out for more books by Belinda Bauer. She has quite a talent.

[Note: Although the book does deal with pedophilia and the murder of children, these themes are handled in a straightforward, non-graphic manner-- which can be even more chilling because your mind is free to add all the details.]