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
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."
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 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
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
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 WallSeries: #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 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?"
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!
