Empty Houses by Betsy Thornton

First Line: The place was a beach town near LA; the event was lunch at La Casita, a Mexican restaurant Harry and Kate went to from time to time.

Kate Waters has come to Dudley, Arizona, in the remote southeastern corner of the state, to escape an abusive relationship. Phoenix police officer Malcolm MacGregor has come there to heal after the death of his wife. The only thing anyone knows about Carrie and Wes Cooper is that they were shot dead right there in town. 

Since Dudley relies a great deal on tourism, those running the town want a quick arrest, but after having spoken to Carrie briefly, Kate is convinced that the wrong man is sitting in jail. She and MacGregor find themselves working as a team to search through the victims' history in order to catch a killer.

Having read and enjoyed all of Thornton's Chloe Newcombe mysteries which are also set in Dudley (a thinly disguised Bisbee), I was excited to see this first book in a new series. As I've come to expect from Thornton, the setting is vivid and adds so much texture to the story. In addition, the mystery kept me guessing from beginning to end. However, all the various parts of the book never really gelled into an enjoyable read for me. 

Thornton inserts derogatory comments about Arizona SB1070 (the highly inflammatory immigration law) and the state's (lack of) gun control. I happen to agree with her on both counts, but if she feels that way about guns, why does one come in so handy in one particular scene? It certainly could have been written differently. 

Although the book is listed as a "Kate Waters" mystery, Kate does very little investigating in the book. Instead it's MacGregor's expertise that is put to good use. I liked MacGregor even though he seems to be one of those men who are drawn to damsels in distress. He's a good investigator and a nice guy.

Kate Waters is certainly a damsel in distress. A very annoying one. I have to admit that she is the main drawback in this book. The woman has just escaped from an abusive relationship. She lives in fear that her ex will find her. She is extremely paranoid. All that being said, then why on earth did she go do something and leave her house unlocked for the entire day because she knows a friend will be stopping by? That almost beggars belief. And-- once again-- if Kate is so paranoid, why can she never remember to charge her cell phone? A bit difficult to call for help if her phone's dead, isn't it?

I did enjoy the mystery in Empty Houses, and as always, I can't get enough of the setting, but with Kate Waters as the main character, I doubt very much that I'll continue with this series. What a shame.
 

Empty Houses by Betsy Thornton

eISBN: 9781780106526

Severn House Publishers © 2015

eBook, 224 pages

Private Investigator/Amateur Sleuth, #1 Kate Waters mystery

Rating: C

Source: Net Galley 

July 2015 New Mystery Releases!

Hard to believe that the second half of a Sonoran Desert summer is already underway. We're special here. We get two summers. One with dry, blast furnace heat. The second (which just started a very few days ago) not so dry humidity-wise, with dust storms (AKA haboobs), and... hopefully... some rain.

I've been out in the pool, reading as fast as I can go, stopping only for the necessities. But you know me. I may be out in the pool in the afternoons turning pages lickety-split, but I'm going to find some time to keep an eye on new crime fiction that I'm going to want to read!

The following are my picks for new books being released during the month of July. They're grouped by release date, and you'll find all the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite "book procurement locations." Synopses are courtesy of Amazon.

Happy Reading!

=== July 1 ===

Title: The Case of the Dotty Dowager
Author: Cathy Ace
Series: #1 in the WISE Enquiries Agency cozy series set in Wales
ISBN: 9780727884954 
Publisher: Severn House
Hardcover, 224 pages

Synopsis: "Henry Twyst, eighteenth Duke of Chellingworth, is convinced his mother is losing her marbles. She claims to have seen a corpse on the dining-room floor, but all she has to prove it is a bloodied bobble hat.

Worried enough to retain the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency – one is Welsh, one Irish, one Scottish and one English – Henry wants the strange matter explained away. But the truth of what happened at the Chellingworth Estate, set in the rolling Welsh countryside near the quaint village of Anwen by Wye, is more complex, dangerous, and deadly, than anyone could have foreseen . . ." 

Title: Empty Houses
Author: Betsy Thornton
Series: #1 in the Kate Waters series set in southeastern Arizona
ISBN: 9780727884985
Publisher: Severn House
Hardcover, 224 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "Dudley, Arizona is an isolated desert town attracting people who need to escape. Kate Waters flees there following an abusive relationship. Phoenix cop Malcolm MacGregor comes to recover from the death of his wife. No one knows why Carrie and Wes Cooper arrived. But when they are shot dead, the town authorities’ first instinct is to protect the lucrative tourist trade and make a quick arrest – without asking too many questions.

Having once spoken to Carrie briefly, Kate becomes increasingly convinced that the wrong man has been arrested for the crime. Was the shooting random, or is there something in the victims’ history back east that would explain it? Teaming up with Malcolm MacGregor, Kate is about to uncover disturbing links between her own and Carrie’s past. Is Kate herself at risk?" 

Title: Walking by Night
Author: Kate Ellis
Series: #5 in the Joe Plantagenet police procedural series set in Yorkshire, England
ISBN: 9781780290737
Publisher: Crème de la Crime
Hardcover, 224 pages

Synopsis: "Taking a short cut home beneath the ruined abbey in the centre of the city, a teenage girl reports stumbling across a body. She also claims to have seen a mysterious nun-like figure watching her from the shadows. But during the subsequent search, no body is found. The girl’s inebriated state and her troubled history make the police sceptical of her story, and only Detective Inspector Joe Plantagenet is inclined to believe her.

Then a woman is reported missing, and Joe finds himself caught up in a complex investigation involving a production of The Devils at the local Playhouse. Could the play, with its shocking religious and sexual violence, have something to do with the woman’s disappearance? And is there really a connection with the tragic death of a young nun at the site many centuries before? Nothing is as it first appears." 

=== July 7 ===

Title: Green Hell

Author: Ken Bruen

Series: #11 in the Jack Taylor noir series set in Galway, Ireland

ISBN: 9780802123565

Publisher: Mysterious Press

Hardcover, 304 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "The award-winning crime writer Ken Bruen, called 'the best-kept literary secret in Ireland' by the Independent, is as joyously unapologetic in his writing as he is wickedly poetic, mixing high and low with hypnotic mastery. In the previous book in the series, Purgatory, ex-cop Jack Taylor had finally turned his life around, only to be taunted back into fighting Galway’s corruption by a twisted serial killer named C33. In the new novel Green Hell, Bruen’s dark angel of a protagonist has again hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead, the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up battling his addiction to alcohol and pills; and his firing from the Irish national police, the Guards, is ancient history. But Jack isn’t about to embark on a self-improvement plan. Instead, he has taken up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has a violent habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. And when Jack rescues a preppy American student on a Rhodes Scholarship from a couple of kid thugs, he also unexpectedly gains a new sidekick, who abandons his thesis on Beckett to write a biography of Galway’s most magnetic rogue.

Between pub crawls and violent outbursts, Jack’s vengeful plot against the professor soon spirals toward chaos. Enter Emerald, an edgy young Goth who could either be the answer to Jack’s problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing. Ireland may be known as a 'green Eden,' but in Jack Taylor’s world, the national color has a decidedly lethal sheen." 

Title: Down Among the Dead Men

Author: Peter Lovesey

Series: #15 in the Peter Diamond police procedural series set in southern England

ISBN: 9781616956264

Publisher: Soho Crime

Hardcover, 384 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls’ school disappears without explanation. None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacement is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car. But then her name shows up on a police missing persons list. What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?

Meanwhile, detective Peter Diamond finds himself in Sussex, much against his wishes. His irritating and often obtuse supervisor, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, has made Diamond accompany her on a Home Office internal investigation. A Sussex detective has been suspended for failing to link DNA evidence of a relative to a seven-year-old murder
case—a bad breach of ethics. Diamond is less than thrilled to be heading out on a road trip with his boss to investigate a fellow officer, but he becomes much more interested in the case when he realizes who the suspended officer is—an old friend, and not a person he knows to make mistakes.

As Diamond asks questions, he begins to notice unsettling connections between the cold case and the missing art teacher. Could the two mysteries be connected? How many other area disappearances have gone unnoticed and uninvestigated? Diamond and his hapless supervisor have stumbled into a web of related crimes. Will Diamond be able to disentangle them?" 

Title: The Fraud

Author: Brad Parks

Series: #6 in the Carter Ross investigative reporter series set in New Jersey

ISBN: 9781250064400

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 352 pages

Synopsis: "In the most thrilling entry yet in Brad Parks's award-winning series, investigative reporter Carter Ross must chose who gets to live: him or his unborn child.

A rash of carjackings terrorizing Newark become newsworthy when one such theft ends in the murder of a wealthy banking executive. The affable, wisecracking Ross is assigned the story, but he's weary of only writing about victims of crime who happen to be rich and white. To balance his reporting, he finds a Nigerian immigrant of more modest means who was also killed during a recent carjacking.

When it turns out the two victims knew each other, sharing an unexplained round of golf at a tony country club shortly before their deaths, Carter is plunged onto the trail of a deadly band of car thieves that includes a sociopathic ex-convict. When his unborn child is put in harm's way, it becomes more than just a story for Carter. And he'll stop at nothing to rescue the baby-even if it costs him his own life.

Parks, a rising star on the crime fiction scene known for his mix of wit and grit, delivers his most emotionally resonant book yet." 

Title: A Study in Death

Author: Anna Lee Huber

Series: #4 in the Lady Darby historical series set in 1830s Scotland

ISBN: 9780425277522

Publisher: Berkley

Hardcover, 336 pages

Synopsis: "Scotland, 1831. After a tumultuous courtship complicated by three deadly inquiries, Lady Kiera Darby is thrilled to have found both an investigative partner and a fiancé in Sebastian Gage. But with her well-meaning—and very pregnant—sister planning on making their wedding the event of the season, Kiera could use a respite from the impending madness.

Commissioned to paint the portrait of Lady Drummond, Kiera is saddened when she recognizes the pain in the baroness’s eyes. Lord Drummond is a brute, and his brusque treatment of his wife forces Kiera to think of the torment caused by her own late husband.

Kiera isn’t sure how to help, but when she finds Lady Drummond prostrate on the floor, things take a fatal turn. The physician called to the house and Lord Drummond appear satisfied to rule her death natural, but Kiera is convinced that poison is the real culprit.

Now, armed only with her knowledge of the macabre and her convictions, Kiera intends to discover the truth behind the baroness’s death—no matter what, or who, stands in her way…" 

Title: Caught Read-Handed

Author: Terrie Farley Moran

Series: #2 in the Read 'Em and Eat cozy series set on the Florida Gulf Coast

ISBN: 9780425270295

Publisher: Berkley

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Synopsis: "From the national bestselling author of Well Read, Then Dead comes the second mystery featuring Sassy Cabot and Bridgy Mayfield, who bring Fort Myers Beach, Florida, residents plenty of sinful treats and killer reads at their bookstore café, Read ’Em and Eat.

Happy to help her fellow bibliophiles, Sassy visits the local library with book donations for their annual fundraising sale. Unfortunately, the welcoming readers’ haven is in turmoil as an argument erupts between an ornery patron and new staff member, Tanya Lipscombe—also known as “Tanya Trouble.” She may lack people skills, but everyone is shocked when she’s later found murdered in her own hot tub.

The man last seen arguing with Tanya is soon arrested. But Alan Mersky, a veteran with PTSD, happens to be the brother of Sassy’s former boss—and he’s no murderer. Now it’s up to Sassy and Bridgy to clear Alan’s name and make sure the real killer gets booked.

Includes a recipe for Miss Marple scones!" 

Title: Hooked on Ewe

Author: Hannah Reed

Series: #2 in the Scottish Highlands cozy series

ISBN: 9780425265833

Publisher: Berkley

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

 

Synopsis: "It’s early September in Glenkillen, Scotland, when American expat (and budding romance novelist) Eden Elliott is recruited by the local inspector to act as a special constable. Fortunately it’s in name only, since not much happens in Glenkillen.

For now Eden has her hands full with other things: preparing for the sheepdog trial on the MacBride farm—a fundraiser for the local hospice—and helping her friend Vicki with her first yarn club skein-of-the-month deliveries. Everything seems to be coming together—until the head of the welcoming committee is found strangled to death with a club member’s yarn.

Now Eden feels compelled to honor her commitment as constable and herd together the clues, figure out which ones are dogs, and which ones will lead to a ruthless killer . . ." 

=== July 14 ===

Title: After the Storm

Author: Linda Castillo

Series: #7 in the Kate Burkholder police procedural series set in Ohio Amish country

ISBN: 9781250061560

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 320 pages

 

Synopsis: "When a tornado tears through Painters Mill and unearths human remains, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder finds herself tasked with the responsibility of identifying the bones--and notifying the family. Evidence quickly emerges that the death was no accident and Kate finds herself plunged into a thirty year old case that takes her deep into the Amish community to which she once belonged. 

 Meanwhile, turmoil of an emotional and personal nature strikes at the very heart of Kate's budding relationship with state agent John Tomasetti. A reality that strains their fragile new love to the breaking point and threatens the refuge they've built for themselves--and their future.

Under siege from an unknown assailant--and her own personal demons--Kate digs deep into the case only to discover proof of an unimaginable atrocity, a plethora of family secrets and the lengths to which people will go to protect their own." 

=== July 28 ===

Title: Badlands

Author: C.J. Box

Standalone set in North Dakota

ISBN: 9780312583217

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 288 pages

Synopsis: "Twenty miles across the North Dakota border, where the scenery goes from rolling grass prairie to pipeline fields, detective Cassie Dewell has been assigned as the new deputy sheriff of Grimstad-a place people used to be from, but were never headed to. Grimstad is now the oil capital of North Dakota. With oil comes money, with money comes drugs, and with drugs come the dirtiest criminals hustling to corner the market.

In the small town resides twelve-year-old Kyle Westergaard. Even though Kyle has been written off as the "slow" kid, he has dreams deeper than anyone can imagine. He wants to get out of town, take care of his mother, and give them a better life. While delivering newspapers, he witnesses a car accident and takes a mysterious bundle from the scene. Now in possession of a lot of money and packets of white powder, Kyle wonders if his luck has changed.

When the temperature drops to 30 below and a gang war heats up, Cassie realizes that she may be in over her head. As she is propelled on a collision course with a murderous enemy, she finds that the key to it all might come in the most unlikely form: an undersized boy on a bike who keeps showing up where he doesn't belong. Because a boy like Kyle is invisible. But he sees everything." 

Title: Brush Back

Author: Sara Paretsky

Series: #18 in the V.I. Warshawski series set in Chicago, Illinois

ISBN: 9780399160578

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Hardcover, 480 pages

Synopsis: "No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a fight, but there are a few she’d be happy to avoid. High on that list is tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet that’s precisely what she ends up doing when she responds to Frank Guzzo’s plea for help.

For six stormy weeks back in high school, V.I. thought she was in love with Frank. He broke up with her, she went off to college, he started driving trucks for Bagby Haulage. She forgot about him until the day his mother was convicted of bludgeoning his kid sister, Annie, to death. Stella Guzzo was an angry, uncooperative prisoner and did a full twenty-five years for her daughter’s murder.

Newly released from prison, Stella is looking for exoneration, so Frank asks V.I. for help. V.I. doesn’t want to get involved. Stella hated the Warshawskis, in particular V.I.’s adored mother, Gabriella.

But life has been hard on Frank and on V.I.’s other childhood friends, still stuck on the hardscrabble streets around the dead steel mills, and V.I. agrees to ask a few questions. Those questions lead her straight into the vipers’ nest of Illinois politics she’s wanted to avoid. When V.I. takes a beating at a youth meeting in her old hood, her main question becomes whether she will live long enough to find answers. " 

Title: Broken Promise

Author: Linwood Barclay

Standalone set in New York State

ISBN: 9780451472670

Publisher: NAL

Hardcover, 512 pages

Synopsis: "After his wife’s death and the collapse of his newspaper, David Harwood has no choice but to uproot his nine-year-old son and move back into his childhood home in Promise Falls, New York. David believes his life is in free fall, and he can’t find a way to stop his descent.

Then he comes across a family secret of epic proportions. A year after a devastating miscarriage, David’s cousin Marla has continued to struggle. But when David’s mother asks him to check on her, he’s horrified to discover that she’s been secretly raising a child who is not her own—a baby she claims was a gift from an “angel” left on her porch.

When the baby’s real mother is found murdered, David can’t help wanting to piece together what happened—even if it means proving his own cousin’s guilt. But as he uncovers each piece of evidence, David realizes that Marla’s mysterious child is just the tip of the iceberg.

Other strange things are happening. Animals are found ritually slaughtered. An ominous abandoned Ferris wheel seems to stand as a warning that something dark has infected Promise Falls. And someone has decided that the entire town must pay for the sins of its past…in blood." 

======

There's some mighty fine reading coming up during the month of July, isn't there? I'd be hard-pressed to figure out where to start first!

What about you? Did you find any books in this list that tickled your fancy? Which ones? You know that inquiring minds want to know!

Dream Queen by Betsy Thornton

First Line: It seems like so very long ago that I boarded the plane from New York City to Arizona, on my way to the small town of Dudley, to see my little brother Danny and to see Hal, and, in fact, it was long ago-- before cell phones came along and BlackBerrys and computers you could Google on.

This sixth book in the Chloe Newcombe series is actually a prequel, telling us what brought Chloe to Dudley, Arizona.

Two years after her older brother, James, died of AIDS in California, Chloe has ended her relationship with an alcoholic ex-cop. She decides to take a short break from being a private investigator in New York City to visit her younger brother, Danny, in Dudley, Arizona (a very thinly disguised Bisbee). James' partner Hal owns a house there where Danny has moved in with Kristi Marsh, a troubled and beautiful young woman. 

When Chloe's flight arrives in Tucson, she's met by Danny and Kristi, and they begin the long drive to Dudley. In Benson, the van breaks down. Danny sends the two women across the street to a diner while he stays at the garage to oversee the repairs. Time passes, and no sign of Danny. When Chloe walks back to the garage to see what's going on, the mechanic tells her that Danny got into a car with another man and drove off. Danny never comes back.

Chloe knows that something is desperately wrong, but she has an extremely difficult time convincing local police of it. There's nothing for Chloe to do but get in the van with Kristi and drive to Dudley. Then Kristi vanishes and is later found shot to death. Now the police are very interested in finding her ex-con brother Danny. Chloe knows that she's the only real chance Danny has of getting a fair break. But where is he? Is Danny still alive?

Before I even say anything about the book itself, I want to say that I love the cover (and I'm not a reader who sets much store by book covers)! The artist didn't quite understand the steep slopes of the Mule Mountains with old wooden houses valiantly clinging to their sides, but it's close. And the sky? The sky is totally right. Enough art interpretation!

In many ways, it feels as though main character Chloe Newcombe is sitting on her porch looking at the book cover sky and reliving a memory that she'd like to change. The book is not told in the manner of a flashback, though. In a very few paragraphs, her plane lands in Tucson, and we're completely back in the 1990s when Chloe first stepped foot in the old mining town of Dudley.

Chloe's faith in her younger brother is absolute. She's never pretended that Danny's led a blameless life, but she knows what he is capable of. Abandoning the woman and the sister he loves in a diner alongside the interstate is not something Danny would do. Chloe does whatever needs to be done to try to find him-- and then she adds finding Kristi's killer to her list.

One of the things that made the biggest impression on me was the feeling of exhaustion throughout the book. This is a woman who's going through an unhappy time in her life; she's in a completely unfamiliar place and climate; she's getting very little help from anyone; she seldom feels like eating; and sleep is a stranger. But her sheer determination is awe-inspiring. Many people reading the book won't pay all that much attention to the miles she racks up driving to Benson and Tucson, back to Dudley, then back to Tucson to hop a plane to fly to California to drive to someone who may have some information she's looking for... then back to Dudley. The trips to California are day trips. Tucson to Dudley is a ninety-minute trip one way. This made me tired, and I wasn't behind the wheel. The woman certainly deserves frequent driver miles.

People have died, others have disappeared, and some of the people Chloe knows aren't whom they appear to be. Through her sadness, worry and exhaustion, she's got to sort that all out and pray that it all turns out for the best. From the light fog of dread that drifts throughout the book, it's a sure thing that not everything is going to end well. But it won't be for the lack of trying on the part of one solitary, worn-out woman fighting for the people she loves.

I liked being able to see what brought Chloe to her life in Dudley. Was I drawn in by her plight? Absolutely. At the very least I wanted be her chauffeur so she could get some sleep!

If you haven't read any of the other books in the series, you aren't going to be lost by picking this one up. (It's a prequel after all.) When you're finished, you just might want to read more about Chloe Newcombe, and there are five good books waiting for you.

Dream Queen by Betsy Thornton

ISBN: 9780312602055

Minotaur Books  ©2010

Hardcover, 288 pages

#6 Chloe Newcombe mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

A Song for You by Betsy Thornton

Title: A Song for You
Author: Betsy Thornton 
ISBN: 9780312380625
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2008
Hardcover, 304 pages
Genre: Private Investigator, #5 Chloe Newcomb mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: I'd heard stories and there is always something worse than what you are going through right now but it was the worst monsoon in my memory.

To those living elsewhere, the knowledge that Arizona has a monsoon season probably sounds more than a bit humorous-- until you realize that  "monsoon" means "seasonal rains". The deserts of southern Arizona only receive a miserly seven inches of rain per year (in a good year), and those rains are very seasonal: winter and summer. In summer, a monsoon storm can be very fierce with dust storms, strong winds, and an inch of rain that wants to fall in five minutes or less. A lot of water falling that fast on hard-packed dirt can cause torrential run-off.

The Barnetts, newcomers to Dudley, bought themselves a lovely little cottage but weren't prepared for the ferocity of monsoon season. In no time at all they learned that many of the restored features of their home were merely cosmetic. Just skin deep. They were less than pleased when they were told that a retaining wall had to be repaired-- and they were horrified when a dead body is dug up.

The body had been there for quite some time, and when Rachel Macabee reads about it in the local paper, she becomes convinced that the dead man was a member of the rock band her mother sang with when Rachel was a little girl. The man had disappeared a few days before her mother was killed. Not trusting the police (since they'd gotten it wrong the first time), she hires private detective Brian Flynn, a former police officer and Chloe Newcomb's former lover.

Chloe, a victims advocate for the Cochise County Attorney's Office, is becoming more and more disenchanted with her job-- mainly due to her new boss, who's really good at attending meetings only to come back and drive everyone in the office crazy:

I went back to my desk. I couldn't see that victims had it any better now that everything was online. I couldn't see that I had any more time to serve them either. It was more like I had less. I was just a leftover, I thought, from the days before computers, and now the great wheel of technology juiced up by master's degrees in business administration had rolled over me and squished me-- a mashed-up relic-- a human being.

Though Netflix was awfully convenient.

Brian asks Chloe for her help, and although she has misgivings, she agrees. Her career as a victims advocate means that she's a perfect listener; she can deal with highly emotional people and situations and glean the facts. This also means that she approaches Rachel's case from a different perspective than Brian Flynn, so there is conflict between the two. But with both of them on the case, there's little doubt that Rachel will finally learn what happened to her mother and be able to put the past behind her.

Since Brian and Chloe have a history, the dynamics between the two in the workplace makes for some interesting interactions, and as always, Chloe's voice, both interior and exterior, can be very amusing. Rachel, scarred by her mother's death when she was a child, is a very sympathetically drawn character even though some of her behaviors-- and the way the two men in her life treat her-- can be annoying to say the least.

I've enjoyed Betsy Thornton's books since the first, The Cowboy Rides Away. Chloe is a woman with a past that you don't learn about all at once. As a victim advocate her approach to each crime is slightly different than the norm, and she lives in an area-- Cochise County, Arizona-- that's filled with characters and stories. Thornton's characterizations, stories, and use of the wonderful setting of a thinly disguised Bisbee, Arizona, makes this one of my favorite mystery series.

Buy from Amazon.

Buy from The Book Depository.

Buy from an Indie Bookseller. 

August 2010 New Mystery Releases!

Book lovers are quite a diverse group of people scattered all over the globe, but we do have a few things in common. One of them has to be that we're always on the lookout for new books in our favorite genres.

I am no exception to this. I love crime fiction. I have favorite series and favorite authors, and I just love to know what's coming out so I can get the titles on my Paperback Swap wish list or so I can plan my next trip to The Poisoned Pen.

The following books are my top ten picks for new crime fiction being released in August. The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find it at your favorite book spot. If you'd like to know more about the plot, etc., click on the book cover.

Let's see which titles have me drooling this month!

===August 1 Release===

Title: Love Songs From a Shallow Grave
Author: Colin Cotterill
Series: #7 in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series set in 1970s Laos
ISBN: 9781569476277
Publisher: Soho Crime
Hardcover, 304 pages












Title: Broken
Author: Karin Fossum
Translator: Charlotte Barslund
Series: Standalone by the author of the Konrad Sejer series set in Norway.
ISBN: 9780151013661
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover, 272 pages

===August 3 Release===

Title: Burn
Author: Nevada Barr
Series: #16 in the Anna Pigeon series set in various National Parks throughout the United States.
ISBN: 9780312614560
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 384 pages











Title: Chapter and Hearse
Author: Lorna Barrett
Series: #4 in the Booktown Mystery series set in New Hampshire.
ISBN: 9780425236017
Publisher: Berkley
Mass Market Paperback, 352 pages













Title: Dream Queen
Author: Betsy Thorton
Series: #6 in the Chloe Newcomb series set in Cochise County, Arizona.
ISBN: 9780312602055
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 288 pages

[I love this cover! It definitely reminds me of Cochise County.]

===August 9 Release===

Title: City of Veils
Author: Zoë Ferraris
Series: #2 in the Hijazi & Sharqi series set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
ISBN: 9780316074278
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover, 400 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

===August 17 Release===

Title: I'd Know You Anywhere
Author: Laura Lippman
Series: Standalone.
ISBN: 9780061706554
Publisher: William Morrow
Hardcover, 384 pages

===August 31 Release===

Title: The Devil
Author: Ken Bruen
Series: #6 in the Jack Taylor series set in Galway, Ireland.
ISBN: 9780312646967
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 208 pages












Title: Black Sun
Author: Graham Brown
Series: #2 in the Danielle Laidlaw series set in the Amazon.
ISBN: 9780553592429
Publisher: Bantam
Mass Market Paperback, 480 pages

*Upcoming review of Black Rain, the first book in this series, here on Kittling: Books.











Title: An Impartial Witness
Author: Charles Todd
Series: #2 in the Bess Crawford series set during World War I.
ISBN: 9780061791789
Publisher: William Morrow
Hardcover, 352 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books










These are the ten crime fiction books being published in August about which I'm most excited. How about you? Are any of these titles being added to your own wish lists? Do tell!