Thursday, December 27, 2012

January 2013 New Mystery Releases!



I hope we all have the opportunity to spend afternoons and evenings in languorous bliss, curled up under cozy afghans by crackling fires to read the books we were given as gifts. This last week of December is one of reflection for me-- and of gratitude for all my many blessings.

One of those blessings has always been to keep an eye peeled for new books that I think my friends and I will enjoy.

I've rounded up twelve new books for January that I'm looking forward to. They're grouped by release date, and I've tried to include all the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book spots. Hopefully I've chosen a title or two that tickles your fancy, too! Ready for my list? Here we go!


=== January 1 ===


Title: Classic in the Clouds
Author: Amy Myers
Series: #3 in the Jack Colby Car Detective series set in England
ISBN:  9780727882233
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Hardcover, 224 pages

Synopsis: "When car detective Jack Colby is asked by the ‘Mad Major’ to find one of the original five cars that took place in the original Peking to Paris rally of 1907, he accepts the challenge, but is soon plunged into a far more dangerous investigation. Was the recent death of car restorer Alfred King the accident it seems? It’s not long before the car crime underworld becomes involved in the quest for the missing De Dion, and the stage is set for murder...."



=== January 8 ===


Title: The Llama of Death
Author: Betty Webb
Series: #3 in the Gunn Zoo series set on the central coast of California
ISBN: 9781464200687
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Paperback, 250 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "Zookeeper Theodora "Teddy" Bentley takes Alejandro, the Gunn Zoo llama, to a Monterey Bay-area Renaissance Faire only to discover the still-warm body of the Reverend Victor Emerson, owner of the local wedding chapel, dressed in his royal robes as Henry the Eighth. At first it appears as if Alejandro stomped the man to death, but a closer look reveals a crossbow dart in the man's back. Teddy's investigation proves the 'reverend' isn't really a reverend at all -- he's an escaped convict, and every marriage he's performed in the past twenty years is null and void. Teddy's mother Caro, a spoiled ex-beauty queen, becomes the chief suspect and is immediately jailed when she causes a riot in the courtroom.The 'reverend' had twice married Caro to wealthy men, and when both marriages failed, Caro received large financial settlements. Now she may have to give all that money back, certainly a good enough reason to commit murder. But Caro wasn't the only person gunning for Victor. As Teddy continues her investigation, she finds herself up to her ears in girl gang members, squabbling boat liveaboarders, Renaissance Faire actors and stuntmen, and assorted animals. Written with a humorous touch, The Llama of Death portrays Renaissance Faire life, and gives the reader a rare behind-the-scenes look at modern zoos."


Title: Hiding Gladys
Author: Lee Mims
Series: #1 in the Cleo Cooper field geologist series set in North Carolina
ISBN:  9780738734231
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Paperback, 264 pages

Synopsis: "Cleo Cooper is either about to strike it rich or lose it all. Discovering a huge and rare granite deposit is a geologist’s dream come true. The multi-million dollar quarry deal will also benefit Cleo’s friend Gladys Walton, who owns the rural North Carolina property. So what could go wrong? Finding a dead body in Gladys’s well, for starters. A hitchhiking rattlesnake and a near-fatal accident during the drill test convinces Cleo that someone is dead set on scaring her—and halting the project. The two likely suspects? Gladys’s greedy, grown children, Robert Earle and Shirley, who try every dirty trick in the book to cash in on the granite-rich land. But are they nasty enough to resort to murder?"


Title: Kinsey and Me: Stories
Author: Sue Grafton
A collection of short stories featuring Kinsey Millhone
ISBN: 9780399163838
Publisher: Marian Wood/ Putnam
Hardcover, 304 pages

Synopsis: "In 1982, Sue Grafton introduced us to Kinsey Millhone. Thirty years later, Kinsey is an established international icon and Sue, a number-one bestselling author. To mark this anniversary year, Sue has given us stories that reveal Kinsey’s origins and Sue’s past.

'I've come to believe that Grafton is not only the most talented woman writing crime fiction today but also that, regardless of gender, her Millhone books are among the five or six best series any American has ever written.'—Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post

Kinsey and Me has two parts: The nine Kinsey stories (1986-93), each a gem of detection; and the And Me stories, written in the decade after Grafton's mother died. Together, they show just how much of Kinsey is a distillation of her creator’s past even as they reveal a child who, free of parental interventions, read everything and roamed everywhere. But the dark side of such freedom was that very parental distance.

The same unique voice and witty insights readers fell in love with in
A Is for Alibi permeate the Kinsey stories. Those in the And Me section trace a remarkable voyage, from anger to understanding, from pain to forgiveness. They take us into a troubled family, dysfunctional as most families are, each in their own way, but Grafton’s telling is sensitive, delicate, and ultimately, loving. Enriching the way we see Kinsey and know Sue, these stories are deeply affecting.


=== January 9 ===


Title: Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder
Author: Mike Befeler
Series: #4 in the Geezer Lit series set on a cruise to Alaska
ISBN: 9781432825812
Publisher: Five Star
Hardcover: 276 pages

Synopsis: "In this entry, the fourth of the Paul Jacobson Geezer-Lit Mystery Series, crotchety octogenarian Paul Jacobson becomes involved in a series of crimes while struggling with the problems of his short-term memory loss.

On a honeymoon cruise to Alaska with his bride, Paul must deal with mayhem, missing people, and murder. He has to use all his geezer resources to solve a case of international intrigue.
"


Title: The Sign of the Weeping Virgin
Author: Alana White
Standalone
ISBN: 9781432826239
Publisher: Five Star
Hardcover, 384 pages

Synopsis: "Romance and intrigue abound in The Sign of the Weeping Virgin, an evocative historical mystery that brings the Italian Renaissance gloriously to life.

In 1480 Florentine investigator Guid Antonio Vespucci and his nephew Amerigo are tangled in events that threaten to destroy them and their beloved city.

Marauding Turks abduct a beautiful young Florentine girl and sell her into slavery. And then a holy painting begins weeping in Guid Antonio's family church. Are the tears manmade or a sign of God's displeasure with Guid Antonio himself?

In a finely wrought story for lovers of medieval and renaissance mysteries everywhere, Guid Antonio follows a spellbinding trail of clues to uncover the thought-provoking truth about the missing girl and the weeping painting's mystifying--and miraculous?--tears all pursued as he comes face to face with his own personal demons.
"


=== January 15 ===


Title: Snow White Must Die
Author: Nele Neuhaus
Series: #4 in the Bodenstein and Kirchhoff police procedural series set in the Tanus Mountains of Germany
ISBN: 9780312604257
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 384 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: A woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer.

On a September evening eleven years earlier, two seventeen-year-old girls vanished from the village without a trace. In a trial based only on circumstantial evidence, twenty-year-old Tobias Sartorius, Rita Cramer’s son, was sentenced to ten years in prison. Bodenstein and Kirchhoff discover that Tobias, after serving his sentence, has now returned to his home town. Did the attack on his mother have something to do with his return?

In the village, Pia and Oliver encounter a wall of silence. When another young girl disappears, the events of the past seem to be repeating themselves in a disastrous manner. The investigation turns into a race against time, because for the villagers it is soon clear who the perpetrator is—and this time they are determined to take matters into their own hands.

An atmospheric, character-driven and suspenseful mystery set in a small town that could be anywhere, dealing with issues of gossip, power, and keeping up appearances."


Title: Standing in Another Man's Grave
Author: Ian Rankin
Series: #20 in the John Rebus series set in Scotland
ISBN: 9780316224581
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Hardcover, 400 pages

Synopsis: "John Rebus returns to investigate the disappearances of three women from the same road over ten years.

For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere. Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus.

Rebus has never shied away from lost causes - one of the many ways he managed to antagonize his bosses when he was on the force. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Necessary work, but it's not exactly scratching the itch he feels to be in the heart of the action.

Two more women have gone missing from the same road where Sally Hazlitt was last seen. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, Rebus can sense a connection - but pursuing it leads him into the crosshairs of adversaries both old and new. Rebus may have missed the thrill of the hunt, but he's up against a powerful enemy who's got even less to lose.

On the twentieth anniversary of Ian Rankin's first American publication comes a novel bursting with the vitality and suspense that made its author one of crime fiction's most dazzling stars. STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN'S GRAVE is the triumphant return of John Rebus, and a riveting story of sin, redemption, and revenge.
"


Title: On the Rocks
Author: Sue Hallgarth
Standalone
ISBN: 9780985520007
Publisher: Arbor Farm Press
Paperback, 262 pages

Synopsis: "The year is 1929 and Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Willa Cather and her partner Edith Lewis are summering on Grand Manan, an island in the Bay of Fundy. In their cottage's sparsely-furnished attic room, Cather is at work writing Shadows on the Rock, her tenth novel. Relaxing after a hectic winter of working at a New York City ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, Edith is painting watercolors from the cliffs two hundred feet above the rising tides of Whale Cove. Out of the corner of her eye, Edith sees a body plunge from the edge of a cliff to the rocks below....

First-time novelist Sue Hallgarth's intimate view of village politics and the goings-on of two women's communities long lost to history is also a suspenseful and surprising crime novel. Hallgarth draws the reader into a unique retreat, stimulating conversations about literature and art, and an inside glimpse of the lives of a great American novelist and her talented life partner."


Title: The Drowning House
Author: Elizabeth Black
Standalone
ISBN:  9780385535861
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Hardcover, 288 pages

Synopsis: "Photographer Clare Porterfield's once-happy marriage is coming apart, unraveling under the strain of a family tragedy. When she receives an invitation to direct an exhibition in her hometown of Galveston, Texas, she jumps at the chance to escape her grief and reconnect with the island she hasn't seen for ten years. There Clare will have the time and space to search for answers about her troubled past and her family's complicated relationship with the wealthy and influential Carraday family. 

Soon she finds herself drawn into a century-old mystery involving Stella Carraday. Local legend has it that Stella drowned in her family's house during the Great Hurricane of 1900, hanged by her long hair from the drawing room chandelier. Could Stella have been saved? What is the true nature of Clare's family's involvement? The questions grow like the wildflower vines that climb up the walls and fences of the island. And the closer Clare gets to the answers, the darker and more disturbing the truth becomes.

Steeped in the rich local history of Galveston,
The Drowning House portrays two families, inextricably linked by tragedy and time."


=== January 29 ===


Title: Little Elvises
Series: #2 in the Junior Bender series  set in Los Angeles, California
ISBN: 9781616952778
Publisher: Soho Crime
Hardcover, 352 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "LA burglar Junior Bender has (unfortunately) developed a reputation as a competent private investigator for crooks. The unfortunate part about this is that regardless of whether he solves the crime or not, someone dangerous is going to be unhappy with him, either his suspect or his employer.

Now Junior is being bullied into proving aging music industry mogul Vinnie DiGaudio is innocent of the murder of a nasty tabloid journalist he'd threatened to kill a couple times. It doesn’t help that the dead journalist’s widow is one pretty lady, and she’s trying to get Junior to mix pleasure with business. Just as the investigation is spiraling out of control, Junior's hard-drinking landlady begs him to solve the disappearance of her daughter, who got involved with a very questionable character. And, worst news of all, both Junior's ex-wife and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Rina, seem to have new boyfriends. What a mess.
"


Title: Speaking from Among the Bones
Author: Alan Bradley
Series: #5 in the Flavia de Luce series set in 1950s England
ISBN: 9780385344036
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Hardcover, 400 pages

Synopsis: "Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such thing as an open-and-shut case."


There are some good books coming out in January, aren't there? Did any of the titles tickle your fancy? Which ones? This inquiring mind just has to know!


4 comments:

  1. Cathy - Oh, look! Oh, look! Another story about Flavia de Luce! And a new Betty Webb too! I like her Lena Jones series Oh, and there's a new Mike Befeler too? Yeah, this is gonna be a hard month for the ol' TBR...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know what you mean-- I'm running out of space on my TBR shelves. Must. Read. Faster!

      Delete
  2. I love the cover for The Drowing House. I think that alone would make me pick it up.

    ReplyDelete

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