When I was a child growing up in central Illinois, spring brought me a special misery: when the sap started rising in the maple trees, I got sick. Well, I'm living in the Sonoran Desert, so I moved away from that particular ailment. Now when the sap starts rising, I want to get out and about and do things. That's how I feel right now, so I'm going to dive right into my picks of the new crime fiction available in May.
I've grouped them by their release dates, and I've included all the information you'll need to find them at your favorite book procurement locations. Book synopses are courtesy of Amazon. Let's not waste any more time!
=== May 1 ===
Title: Dancing with Death
Series: #1 Nell Drury historical mystery set in 1920s England
ISBN: 9780727886859
Publisher: Severn House
Hardcover, 224 pages
Synopsis: "1925. The fashionable Bright Young Things from London have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball followed by a midnight Ghost Hunt – and Chef Nell Drury knows she’s in for a busy weekend. What she doesn’t expect to encounter is sudden, violent death.
When a body is discovered in the minstrels’ gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell finds herself caught up in the police investigation which follows. As the darker side of the Roaring Twenties emerges and it becomes increasingly clear that at least one person present that night has a sinister secret to hide, Nell determines to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?"
=== May 2 ===
Title: Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall
Series: #4 in the Kat Stanford cozy series set in a stately home in Devon, England
ISBN: 9781250065490
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 320 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "When the only copy of Ravished, Iris Stanford’s new manuscript, never arrives at her London publisher’s office, her daughter Kat investigates the tiny local village post office, where it appears the package never left the building. Iris is on tenterhooks―not only is her novel gone with the wind, but she’s deathly afraid that Muriel Jarvis, the postmistress and notorious busybody, will expose her secret identity as the bestselling romance writer Krystalle Storm. Meanwhile, Muriel has her own problems with the sudden death of her husband Fred, which has left her heavily in debt. In the spine-tingling climax, both past and present collide as Kat fights for her life and those she holds most dear, dancing once again with the dark forces lurking behind the grandeur of Honeychurch Hall."
Title: Killer Characters
Series: #8 in the Books by the Bay cozy series set in North Carolina
ISBN: 9780451488442
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages
Synopsis: "Restaurant owner and aspiring novelist Olivia Limoges is happily enjoying her new marriage. Sadly, the same doesn’t hold true for Laurel, a fellow Bayside Book Writer. While struggling with a demanding job, twin boys, and a terminally ill mother-in-law, Laurel learns that her perfect marriage is mostly fictional. When she catches her husband fooling around with his mother’s hospice nurse, she issues impassioned threats that will later come back to haunt her.
After the nurse meets a deadly denouement, Chief Rawlings is forced to take Laurel into custody. While Olivia protests the arrest, the rest of the Bayside Book Writers become a group divided, with Rawlings and Harris on one side and Olivia and Millay on the other. Now the women must race against the clock to prove that Laurel’s not the sort for murder before her story ends in tragedy…"
Title: Too Lucky to Live
Author: Annie Hogsett
Series: #1 in the Somebody's Bound to Wind Up Dead series set in Cleveland, Ohio
ISBN: 9781464207884
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Paperback, 316 pages
Synopsis: "Lonely and broke, Cleveland divorce-survivor Allie Harper believes all her problems would be solved if she could find a nice, smart, hot guy and enough money to get her car fixed.
The hot guy arrives first: he's in a crosswalk clutching a bag of groceries while a blonde in a Hummer is learning hard on her horn, sending the man's groceries and white cane flying. How has this woman missed that fact that the man is blind? From the curb, an outraged Allie jumps to his rescue, rebagging the groceries as well.
The money is in the bag. Literally- Thomas Bennington III, for that's who the handsome guy proves to be, has bought a MondoMegaJackpot ticket along with canned tomatoes. Allie takes him home and turns his groceries into dinner for two. Later that night, Tom hears the numbers announced. He's won. And he's less than thrilled. PhD Tom had gambled on the odds of losing (175 million to one) to prove a point to Rune, a kid from the projects he's befriended, that only losers buy lottery tickets. Instead, Rune, who'd helped pick the Mondo numbers, will share Tom's jackpot.
Allie and Tom grasp two things: one, they're hot for each other, and two, the ticket is a hot target, and now so are they. Every scheming weasel in Cleveland will be after Tom's millions. $550 of them. Yes, once the Mondo ball drops, it's game on with killers and kidnappers as players.
Allie and Tom need to get smarter about the threats all around them. On the run from one fancy hotel refuge to another and from one danger moment to the next, with only Allie s feisty landlady, Margo, and a couple of Cleveland cops for back-up, Allie and Tom evolve a strategy. First, turn in the ticket and claim the jackpot. Second, set up accounts to manage the millions. Third, stay alive to the end of the week…if they can."
Title: Your Killin' Heart
Author: Peggy O'Neal Peden
Series: #1 in the Nashville Mystery cozy series
ISBN: 9781250122681
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 272 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Nashville is an aspiring country music star. Campbell Hall, for one, just wants to get her travel agency off the ground and move on from a break-up. But when she gets the opportunity to visit the mansion of mysterious country icon Jake Miller, she jumps at the chance. After all, who knows what clues are lurking around the long-dead star’s last home?
But as Campbell pokes around, she discovers more than a few sequined suits and priceless memorabilia. She finds Hazel Miller, Jake’s widow, quietly resting in a bedroom on the main floor. But Hazel might just be dead quiet. And Campbell might just be the last person to have seen her alive.
Juggling the twisty plots of high-profile country stars with her blossoming business―not to mention the tattered remains of her love life―Campbell thinks she’s got everything figured out. But when the danger becomes personal, she must uncover a killer who will stop at nothing to get what they want―or face the music."
=== May 6 ===
Title: Less Than a Treason
Series: #21 in the Kate Shugak private investigator series set in Alaska
ISBN: 9781786695697
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Hardcover, 336 pages
Synopsis: "Kate Shugak is a native Aleut working as a private investigator in Alaska. She's 5'1" tall, carries a scar that runs from ear to ear across her throat, and owns a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt. Resourceful, strong-willed, defiant, Kate is tougher than your average heroine—and she needs to be, to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her. And throw their worst the wilds have: Kate and Mutt have both been shot."
=== May 9 ===
Title: The Thirst
Series: #11 in the Harry Hole police procedural series set in Norway
ISBN: 9780385352161
Publisher: Knopf
Hardcover, 480 pages
Synopsis: "The murder victim, a self-declared Tinder addict. The one solid clue—fragments of rust and paint in her wounds—leaves the investigating team baffled.
Two days later, there’s a second murder: a woman of the same age, a Tinder user, an eerily similar scene.
The chief of police knows there’s only one man for this case. But Harry Hole is no longer with the force. He promised the woman he loves, and he promised himself, that he’d never go back: not after his last case, which put the people closest to him in grave danger.
But there’s something about these murders that catches his attention, something in the details that the investigators have missed. For Harry, it’s like hearing “the voice of a man he was trying not to remember.” Now, despite his promises, despite everything he risks, Harry throws himself back into the hunt for a figure who haunts him, the monster who got away."
Title: Edited Out
Series: #2 in the Mysterious Detective cozy series
ISBN: 9781683311997
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Paperback, 352 pages
Synopsis: "Rachel Goldman writes mysteries in which Duffy Madison, consultant to the county prosecutor’s office, helps find missing persons. Rachel is busy finishing up her next book, when a man calls out of the blue asking for help in a missing persons case. The caller's name? Duffy Madison.
Is this real or has she lost her mind? She doesn't have much time to find out because a serial killer is on the loose, kidnapping and murdering mystery authors. And Rachel may just be the next target."
Title: A Rising Man
Author: Abir Mukherjee
Series: #1 in the Captain Sam Wyndham historical series set in 1919 Calcutta
ISBN: 9781681774169
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Hardcover, 400 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "Calcutta, 1919. Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency.
The body of a senior official has been found in a filthy sewer, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India, or else. Under tremendous pressure to solve the case before it erupts into increased violence on the streets, Wyndham and his two new colleagues―arrogant Inspector Digby and Sergeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID―embark on an investigation that will take them from the opulent mansions of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city.
Masterfully evincing the sights, sounds, and smells of colonial Calcutta, A Rising Man is the start of an enticing new historical crime series."
Title: The Girl on the Bridge
Series: #5 in the Mccabe police procedural series set in Maine
ISBN: 9780062661333
Publisher: William Morrow
Paperback, 368 pages
Synopsis: "On a freezing December night, Hannah Reindel leaps to her death from an old railway bridge into the rushing waters of the river below. Yet the real cause of death was trauma suffered twelve years earlier when Hannah was plucked from a crowd of freshman girls at a college fraternity party, drugged, and then viciously assaulted by six members of the college football team.
Those responsible have never faced or feared justice. Until now. A month after Hannah’s death, Joshua Thorne—former Holden College quarterback and now a Wall Street millionaire—is found murdered, his body bound to a bed and brutally mutilated.
When a second attacker dies in mysterious circumstances, detectives Mike McCabe and Maggie Savage know they must find the killer before more of Hannah’s attackers are executed. But they soon realize, these murders may not be simple acts of revenge, but something far more sinister."
=== May 16 ===
Title: Two Lost Boys
Author: L.F. Robertson
Standalone
ISBN: 9781785652783
Publisher: Titan Books
Paperback, 352 pages
Synopsis: "Janet Moodie has spent years as a death row appeals attorney. Overworked and recently widowed, she’s had her fill of hopeless cases, and is determined that this will be her last. Her client is Marion ‘Andy’ Hardy, convicted along with his brother Emory of the rape and murder of two women. But Emory received a life sentence while Andy got the death penalty, labeled the ringleader despite his low IQ and Emory’s dominant personality.
Convinced that Andy’s previous lawyers missed mitigating evidence that would have kept him off death row, Janet investigates Andy’s past. She discovers a sordid and damaged upbringing, a series of errors on the part of his previous counsel, and most worrying of all, the possibility that there is far more to the murders than was first thought. Andy may be guilty, but does he deserve to die?"
=== May 23 ===
Title: The Long Drop
Standalone set in 1950s Glasgow, Scotland
ISBN: 9780316380577
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover, 240 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books
Synopsis: "In 1950's Glasgow, a household of women were found slaughtered in their beds. The father, William Watt, had a cast iron alibi but police were convinced he was guilty. Determined to clear his name, Watt let it be known that he would pay for information. Step forward career criminal Peter Manuel, with compelling details only the murderer could know. Watt agreed to meet him. They spent twelve hours together, driving and drinking in Glasgow pubs and clubs. No one knows what happened that night. The next time they met was in the High Court where Peter Manuel was defending himself against the murder charges. He called Watt as a witness and quizzed him about their long, shady night together. A fictionalized imagining of a real life case, THE LONG DROP is an explosive novel about guilt, innocence and the power of a good story to hide the difference."
=== May 30 ===
Title: The Chalk Pit
Series: #9 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series set in England
ISBN: 9780544750319
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover, 368 pages
Synopsis: "Norwich is riddled with old chalk-mining tunnels, but no one’s sure exactly how many. When Ruth is called in to investigate a set of human remains found in one of them, she notices the bones are almost translucent, a sign they were boiled soon after death. Once more, she finds herself at the helm of a murder investigation.
Meanwhile, DCI Nelson is hunting for a missing homeless woman, Barbara, who he hears has gone “underground.” Could she have disappeared into the labyrinth? And if so, is she connected to the body Ruth found? As Ruth, Nelson, and the rest of their team investigate the tunnels, they hear rumors of secret societies, cannibalism, and ritual killings. When a dead body is found with a map that appears to be of The Underground, they realize their quest to find the killer has only just begun—and that there may be more bodies underfoot."
I think you'll agree that there are some wonderful authors with new books being released in May! What books did you add to your Need to Buy lists? Inquiring minds would love to know!
