February 2022 New Mystery Releases!

 

I've been living here in Phoenix since 1976, and you'd think that I would be fully acclimated to its rather balmy winters. Part of me is, but the lizard part of my brain looks at a calendar, sees the fateful word "February" on it, and immediately wants to burrow down with a huge stockpile of books and yarn to avoid the usual blizzards.

Now that you know that little tidbit of trivia about me, you know that I've been keeping a lookout for new books, right? Okay. Okay. There's nothing new about that; I just thought I'd drum up a new excuse!

The following list contains my picks for the best new crime fiction being released during the month of February. They're grouped according to release date, and I'd like to thank Amazon for providing their covers and synopses.

Let's take a look to see if I've included any that tickle your fancy, too...

=== February 1 ===

Title: Reader, I Buried Them & Other Stories

Author: Peter Lovesey

Short Story Anthology

384 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "More than fifty years ago, Peter Lovesey published a short story in an anthology. That short story caught the eye of the great Ruth Rendell, whose praise ignited Lovesey’s lifelong passion for short form crime fiction.

On the occasion of his hundredth short story, Peter Lovesey has assembled this devilishly clever collection, eighteen yarns of mystery, melancholy, and mischief, inhabiting such deadly settings as a theater, a monastery, and the book publishing industry.

The collection includes that first story that launched his story-writing career as well as three exclusive new stories. In addition, Lovesey fans will delight in a personal essay by the author about the historical inspirations—and in an appearance by the irascible Bath detective Peter Diamond, who has, in the author’s words, “bulldozed his way” into this volume. "  

Title: Four Thousand Days

Author: M.J. Trow

Series: #1 in the Margaret Murray historical series set in 1900 London.

224 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittlng: Books.

 

Synopsis: "October, 1900. University College, London. When the spreadeagled body of one of her students is discovered in her rented room shortly after attending one of her lectures, Dr Margaret Murray is disinclined to accept the official verdict of suicide and determines to find out how and why the girl really died.

As an archaeologist, Dr Murray is used to examining ancient remains, but she’s never before had to investigate the circumstances surrounding a newly-dead corpse. However, of one thing Margaret is certain: if you want to know how and why a person died, you need to understand how they lived. And it soon becomes clear that the dead girl had been keeping a number of secrets. As Margaret uncovers evidence that Helen Richardson had knowledge of a truly extraordinary archaeological find, the body of a second young woman is discovered on a windswept Kent beach – and the case takes a disturbing new twist … " 

Title: Paris Noir: The Suburbs

Editor: Hervé Delouche 

Short Story Anthology set in the suburbs of Paris, France. 

280 pages

Synopsis: "From the introduction by Hervé Delouche: The term Greater Paris is in vogue today, for it has an administrative cachet and seems to denote a simple extension of the capital—as if a ravenous Paris need only extend her web. However, it was not our goal to embrace the tenets of the metro area’s comprehensive plan, aka the Grand Projet, envisioned as a future El Dorado by the planners and developers. Rather, our aim was to depict the Parisian suburbs in all their plurality and diversity. Without pretending to encompass every spot on the map, we instead opted to give voice and exposure to the localities chosen by the writers who have been part of this adventure. Thus, we decided to adopt the word “suburbs”— in the plural, obviously, for the periphery of the capital is not a homogeneous bloc, nor is it reducible to a cliché like “the suburban ring” . . . Here are thirteen stories, decidedly noir, to be savored without sugar or sweetener."

 

 

Title: The Goodbye Coast

Author: Joe Ide

Series: Standalone Philip Marlowe mystery set in present-day Los Angeles.

320 pages

 

Synopsis: "The seductive and relentless figure of Raymond Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe, is vividly re-imagined in present-day Los Angeles. Here is a city of scheming Malibu actresses, ruthless gang members, virulent inequality, and washed-out police. Acclaimed and award-winning novelist Joe Ide imagines a Marlowe very much of our time: he’s a quiet, lonely, and remarkably capable and confident private detective, though he lives beneath the shadow of his father, a once-decorated LAPD homicide detective, famous throughout the city, who’s given in to drink after the death of Marlowe’s mother.
 
Marlowe, against his better judgement, accepts two missing person cases, the first a daughter of a faded, tyrannical Hollywood starlet, and the second, a British child stolen from his mother by his father. At the center of The Goodbye Coast is Marlowe’s troubled and confounding relationship with his father, a son who despises yet respects his dad, and a dad who’s unable to hide his bitter disappointment with his grown boy. 

Steeped in the richly detailed ethnic neighborhoods of modern LA, Ide’s The Goodbye Coast is a bold recreation that is viciously funny, ingeniously plotted, and surprisingly tender." 

=== February 8 ===

Title: Jane and the Year Without a Summer

Author: Stephanie Barron

Series: #14 in the Jane Austen historical series set in England.

336 pages

 

Synopsis: "May 1816: Jane Austen is feeling unwell, with an uneasy stomach, constant fatigue, rashes, fevers and aches. She attributes her poor condition to the stress of family burdens, which even the drafting of her latest manuscript—about a baronet's daughter nursing a broken heart for a daring naval captain—cannot alleviate. Her apothecary recommends a trial of the curative waters at Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire. Jane decides to use some of the profits earned from her last novel, Emma, and treat herself to a period of rest and reflection at the spa, in the company of her sister, Cassandra.
 
Cheltenham Spa hardly turns out to be the relaxing sojourn Jane and Cassandra envisaged, however. It is immediately obvious that other boarders at the guest house where the Misses Austen are staying have come to Cheltenham with stresses of their own—some of them deadly. But perhaps with Jane’s interference a terrible crime might be prevented. Set during the Year without a Summer, when the eruption of Mount Tambora in the South Pacific caused a volcanic winter that shrouded the entire planet for sixteen months, this fourteenth installment in Stephanie Barron’s critically acclaimed series brings a forgotten moment of Regency history to life." 

=== February 15 ===

Title: Diablo Mesa

Author: Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Series: #3 in the Nora Kelly series set in Roswell, New Mexico.

400 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal—to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly, to her great annoyance, is tasked with the job. 

Nora's excavation immediately uncovers two murder victims buried at the site, faces and hands obliterated with acid to erase their identities. Special Agent Corrie Swanson is assigned to the case. As Nora’s excavation proceeds, uncovering things both bizarre and seemingly inexplicable, Corrie’s homicide investigation throws open a Pandora's box of espionage and violence, uncovering bloody traces of a powerful force that will stop at nothing to protect its secrets—and that threatens to engulf them all in an unimaginable fate." 

Title: The Texas Job

Author: Reavis Z. Wortham

Series: #9 in the Red River historical series, a prequel featuring Tom Bell in 1930s Texas.

416 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Texas Ranger Tom Bell is simply tracking a fugitive killer in 1931 when he rides into Kilgore, a hastily erected shanty town crawling with rough and desperate men―oil drillers who've come by the thousands in search of work. The sheriff of the boomtown is overwhelmed and offers no help, nor are any of the roughnecks inclined to assist the young Ranger in his search for the wanted man.

In fact, it soon becomes apparent that the lawman's presence has irritated the wrong people, and when two failed attempts are made on his life, Bell knows he's getting closer to finding out who is responsible for cheating and murdering local landowners to access the rich oil fields flowing beneath their farms. When they ambush him for a third time, they make the fatal mistake of killing someone close to him and leaving the Ranger alive.

Armed with his trademark 1911 Colt .45 and the Browning automatic he liberated from a gangster's corpse, Tom Bell cuts a swath of devastation through the heart of East Texas in search of the consortium behind the lethal land-grab scheme." 

 

 

Title: The Secret in the Wall

Author: Ann Parker

Series: #8 in the Silver Rush historical series set in 1880s San Francisco, California.

400 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Inez Stannert has reinvented herself―again. Fleeing the comfort and wealth of her East Coast upbringing, she became a saloon owner and card sharp in the rough silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado, always favoring the unconventional path―a difficult road for a woman in the late 1800s.

Then the teenage daughter of a local prostitute is orphaned by her mother's murder, and Inez steps up to raise the troubled girl as her own. Inez works hard to keep a respectable, loving home for Antonia, carefully crafting their new life in San Francisco. But risk is a seductive friend, difficult to resist. When a skeleton tumbles from the wall of her latest business investment, the police only seem interested in the bag of Civil War-era gold coins that fell out with it. With her trusty derringer tucked in the folds of her gown, Inez uses her street smarts and sheer will to unearth a secret that someone has already killed to keep buried. The more she digs, the muddier and more dangerous things become.

She enlists the help of Walter de Brujin, a local private investigator with whom she shares some history. Though she wants to trust him, she fears that his knowledge of her past, along with her growing attraction to him, may well blow her veneer of respectability to bits―that is, if her dogged pursuit of the truth doesn't kill her first." 

=== February 22 ===

Title: The Kill of It All

Author: Diane Vallere

Series: #9 in the Madison Night "Mad for Mod" cozy series set in Texas.

280 pages

 

Synopsis: "Madison Night’s star is on the rise. Thanks to a series of TV spots to promote her decorating business’s grand reopening, she’s busier than ever. The police commissioner, impressed with her screen presence, engages her to replace the original actress in his feel-good campaign for local law enforcement. But when the first spokeswoman’s body is found on set after Madison’s testimonial airs, the last thing the police need is publicity.

Madison steers clear of the controversy by focusing on her company relaunch, but when gossip links the victim to someone special in her life, she gets involved by proxy. She uses her soapbox to draw out suspects, but if she’s not careful, it might serve as a coffin instead.

Can Madison reveal a hidden killer before the bubble bursts on her newfound success?"

 

 

Title: The Verifiers

Author: Jane Pek

Series: #1 in the Claudia Lin amateur sleuth series set in New York City

368 pages

 

Synopsis: "Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. 
 
A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age."

 

February is filled with favorite authors. Are any of these books on your own wish lists? Which ones? Inquiring minds would love to know!