I'm sitting here attempting to get back on track with my normal blogging schedule even though I'm on two medications that make me want to do nothing but (1) stretch out with a book and read or (2) sleep. Since I'm still on the mend from my recent cellulitis flareup, I'm going to keep my introduction to a minimum.
The following books are my picks of the best new crime fiction in July. I've grouped them according to their release dates, and their covers and synopses are courtesy of Amazon.
Let's see if any of my picks are already on your own Need-to-Read lists!
=== July 4 ===
Title: The Housekeepers
Standalone thriller
368 pages
Synopsis: "Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con
artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the
grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a
glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the
shadows.
When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position,
she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black
market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a
magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs.
King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.
Their
plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to
be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every
possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their
elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more
than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…"
=== July 11 ===
Title: The Mistress of Bhatia House
Series: #4 in the Perveen Mistry historical series set in 1920s India.
432 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "India, 1922: Perveen Mistry is the only female lawyer in Bombay, a
city where child mortality is high, birth control is unavailable and
very few women have ever seen a doctor.
Perveen is attending a
lavish fundraiser for a new women’s hospital specializing in maternal
health issues when she witnesses an accident. The grandson of an
influential Gujarati businessman catches fire—but a servant, his young
ayah, Sunanda, rushes to save him, selflessly putting herself in harm’s
way. Later, Perveen learns that Sunanda, who’s still ailing from her
burns, has been arrested on trumped-up charges made by a man who doesn’t
seem to exist.
Perveen cannot stand
by while Sunanda languishes in jail with no hope of justice. She takes
Sunanda as a client, even inviting her to live at the Mistry home in
Bombay’s Dadar Parsi colony. But the joint family household is already
full of tension. Perveen’s father worries about their law firm taking so
much personal responsibility for a client, and her brother
and sister-in-law are struggling to cope with their new baby. Perveen
herself is going through personal turmoil as she navigates a taboo
relationship with a handsome former civil service officer.
When
the hospital’s chief donor dies suddenly, Miriam Penkar, a Jewish-Indian
obstetrician, and Sunanda become suspects. Perveen’s original case
spirals into a complex investigation taking her into the Gujarati
strongholds of Kalbadevi and Ghatkopar, and up the coast to Juhu Beach,
where a decadent nawab lives with his Australian trophy wife. Then a
second fire erupts, and Perveen realizes how much is at stake.
Has someone powerful framed Sunanda to cover up another crime? Will
Perveen be able to prove Sunanda’s innocence without endangering her own
family?"
Title: An Evil Heart
Series: #15 in the Kate Burkholder police procedural series set in Ohio.
320 pages
Synopsis: "On a crisp autumn day in Painters Mill, Chief of Police Kate
Burkholder responds to a call only to discover an Amish man who has been
violently killed with a crossbow, his body abandoned on a dirt road.
Aden Karn was just twenty years old, well liked, and from an upstanding
Amish family. Who would commit such a heinous crime against a young man
whose life was just beginning?
The more Kate gets to know his
devastated family and the people―both English and Amish―who loved him,
the more determined she becomes to solve the case. Aden Karn was funny
and hardworking and looking forward to marrying his sweet fiancé, Emily.
All the while, Kate’s own wedding day to Tomasetti draws near...
But as she delves into Karn’s past, Kate begins to hear whispers about a
dark side. What if Aden Karn wasn’t the wholesome young man everyone
admired? Is it possible the rumors are a cruel campaign to blame the
victim? Kate pursues every lead with a vengeance, sensing an unspeakable
secret no one will broach.
The case spirals out of control when
a young Amish woman comes forward with a horrific story that pits Kate
against a dangerous and unexpected opponent. When the awful truth is
finally uncovered, Kate comes face to face with the terrible
consequences of a life lived in all the dark places."
Title: Ten-Acre Rock
Series: #4 in the Chickasaw Nation mysteries set in Oklahoma.
204 pages
Synopsis: "In the shadow of a massive boulder on Oklahoma's Big Rock
Prairie, a squirrel hunter discovers a charred skeleton in a homemade
charcoal kiln. Johnston County deputy Hannah Bond and Chickasaw
Lighthorse police sergeant Bill Maytubby are called to the scene and
soon identify the victim as a young Chickasaw man from a nearby town.
What
begins as the search for a killer soon throws Maytubby and Bond into
the deep end of a conspiracy that puts both the victim's family and the
officers themselves at risk. While Maytubby and Bond lead a manhunt
through moonlit backroads and blackjack thickets, they must quickly
decipher the murderer's next move ... before it's too late."
=== July 18 ===
Title:
The Bitter Past Series: #1 in the Sheriff Porter Beck series set in Nevada.
320 pages
Synopsis: "Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of
Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he
worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's
back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his
father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this
corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He
was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point
to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that
wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's
investigation.
In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and
the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear
testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but
forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the
deadly goings on now."
=== July 20 ===
Title: The Conspirators
Standalone thriller set in Austria.
400 pages
*UK Release
Synopsis: "Jacob Meaney makes so little money as a translator that his
girlfriend has given up on him. Then Eloise, an Australian digital
marketer, appears out of the blue, offering him unheard of sums for a
couple of weeks' work.
A private plane and helicopter take him to
a showcase villa in Carinthia and all the luxury he could ever want.
Here he meets the owner of the house Bondarenko. Unwillingly Jacob has
become part of an organised crime conspiracy, held captive there by
armed guards.
His task is to interpret between Hindi, Russian
and English during Zoom calls with Nazim, an Indian criminal whose gang
have taken over the manufacture and distribution network of the wonder
fertility drug that Bondarenko has been selling on the internet. It
becomes clear to Jacob that his employer is in far deeper and more
dangerously than he realises. The gang's plan is to take over the entire
operation by any means.
The villa has become a lethal gilded
prison to Jacob and Vlada, the maid who's a trafficked worker. When
Nazim finally strikes which side will Jacob take to survive?"
=== July 25 ===
Title: The Lady from Burma
Author: Allison Montclair
Series: #5 in the Sparks & Bainbridge historical series set in post-World War II England.
336 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners
have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture -
The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a
woman with a dangerous - and never discussed - past in British
intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a war widow with a young son
entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Mostly their clients
are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in this much-changed
world, but their new client is something different. A happily married
woman has come to them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of
cancer, she wants the two to make sure her entomologist, academic
husband finds someone new once she passes.
Shortly thereafter,
she's found dead in Epping Forest, in what appears to be a suicide. But
that doesn't make sense to either Sparks or Bainbridge. At the same
time, Bainbridge is attempting to regain legal control of her life,
opposed by the conservator who has been managing her assets - perhaps
not always in her best interest. When that conservator is found dead,
Bainbridge herself is one of the prime suspects. Attempting to make
sense of two deaths at once, to protect themselves and their clients,
the redoubtable owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are once again
on the case."
Title: Mrs. Plansky's Revenge
Series: #1 in the septuagenarian Mrs. Plansky series set in Florida and Romania.
304 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a recent widow in her seventies, is settling
into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father
and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and
grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis
game one bit.
One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone
call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who desperately
needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. Of course, Loretta
obliges―after all, what are grandmothers for, even grandmothers who
still haven’t gotten a simple “thank you” for a gift sent weeks ago. Not
that she's counting.
By morning, Mrs. Plansky has lost
everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta's life savings have
vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist.
First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just
another victim.
In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs. Plansky
follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in
Romania to get her money and her dignity back―and perhaps find a new
lease on life, too."
Title: The Shadow Girls
Series: #4 in the Natalie Lockhart police procedural series set in New York state.
320 pages
Synopsis: "Someone is playing deadly games. Lieutenant Luke Pittman lies in
the hospital in a coma after being attacked by one of their own.
Veronica Manes, Burning Lake’s most respected modern-day witch, is dead,
her murder left unsolved. Natalie Lockhart has become embroiled in a
case with threads that become increasingly difficult to untangle.
Now,
a new horror is uncovered, one that shocks the town as never before,
and the dark, shadowy path forward for Natalie is paved with challenges
that haunt her past―Veronica’s unsolved case. Her sister’s traumatic
murder. The long-lost disappearance of her old best friend. Natalie’s
obsession with finding the truth leads to a twisted, elemental struggle
between good and evil―and nothing will ever be the same again."
There is definitely some good reading becoming available in July! I'm looking forward to the latest installments of two of my favorite series, Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry and Allison Montclair's Sparks & Bainbridge. Then there's that standalone thriller from another favorite author, William Shaw. I pre-ordered that from Amazon UK. And then there's Spencer Quinn's new series. And then...
Are any of my picks on your own Need-to-Read lists? Which ones? Inquiring minds would love to know!
