The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

 

First Line: Dear Netflix, My name is Dominic Eastwood and I'm a big fan of your true-crime documentaries.

Pub owners Sue and Mal Eastwood have revived their isolated rural pub called The Case Is Altered by featuring a weekly trivia game. Then strange things begin to happen. A body is found in a nearby river, and regulars are outraged when a new quiz team appears every week and comes in first. Every. Single. Time.

But the body and the mysterious quiz team aren't the only mysteries at The Case Is Altered. Sue and Mal Eastwood have their own secret, and their past may have finally caught up with them.

Five years later, the pub is derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What really happened at the pub? Does a single question really have the power to kill?

~

Author Janice Hallett is proving herself to be a queen of the plot-driven mystery. As a character-driven reader, I tend to steer clear of these mysteries, but Hallett's stories are proving to be an exception.

The Killer Question is told through newspaper articles, chat forums, emails, and text messages, and I was surprised by how this method of storytelling captured my interest as each clue was teased out. Another enjoyable aspect of the book is showing the behind-the-scenes operation of pub quizzes-- how questions are formulated, how owners pay close attention to how the quizzes affect their sales, and how the quiz teams each seem to have a personality of their own.

Whenever I feel the need to read a plot-driven mystery, I know the author to look for: Janice Hallett. She knows how to get my little grey cells whirring.

The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

eISBN: 9781668083550

Atria Books © 2025

eBook, 448 pages

Standalone Thriller

Rating: B+

Source Net Galley

September 2024 New Mystery Releases!

September is a month with many new books that crime fiction readers should enjoy. I have reviews due on some of them, so I'm not going to waste any more time-- I need to get back to reading!

 

I've grouped my choices for the best new books according to their release dates, and the covers and synopses are courtesy of Amazon.

Let's see if I can tempt you with any of my picks. September may turn out to be another book-budget-busting month!

 

=== September 3 ===

Title: Death at the Sign of the Rook

Author: Kate Atkinson

Series: #6 in the Jackson Brodie series set in England

320 pages

Synopsis: "Welcome to Rook Hall. The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.

In his sleepy Yorkshire town, ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off boredom and malaise. His only case is the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But Jackson soon uncovers a string of unsolved art thefts that lead him down a dizzying spiral of disguise and deceit to Burton Makepeace, a formerly magnificent estate now partially converted into a hotel hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

As paying guests, impecunious aristocrats and old friends collide, we are treated to Atkinson’s most charming and fiendishly clever mystery yet, one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to the modern era of Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building."

Title: Where They Last Saw Her

Author: Marcie R. Rendon

Standalone set in northern Minnesota

336 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

 

Synopsis: "Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. Just a girl when Jimmy Sky jumped off the railway bridge and she ran for help, Quill realizes now that she’s never stopped running. As she trains for the Boston Marathon early one morning in the woods, she hears a scream. When she returns to search the area, all she finds are tire tracks and a single beaded earring.

Things are different now for Quill than when she was a lonely girl. Her friends Punk and Gaylyn are two women who don’t know what it means to quit; her loving husband, Crow, and their two beautiful children challenge her to be better every day. So when she hears a second woman has been stolen, she is determined to do something about it—starting with investigating the group of men working the pipeline construction just north of their homes.

As Quill closes in on the truth about the missing women, someone else disappears. In her quest to find justice for all of the women of the reservation, she is confronted with the hard truths of their home and the people who purport to serve them. When will she stop losing neighbors, friends, family? As Quill puts everything on the line to make a difference, the novel asks searing questions about bystander culture, the reverberations of even one act of crime, and the long-lasting trauma of being considered invisible." 

Title: The Whitewashed Tombs

Author: Kwei Quartey

Series: #4 in the P.I. Emma Djan series set in Ghana

336 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

 

Synopsis: "Marcelo Tetteh, a twenty-seven-year-old LGBTQ+ activist, is butchered one night after being lured on a dating app to a deserted building site. With rampant homophobia in Ghana, Marcelo’s wealthy father doesn’t trust the Ghana Police Service to find the killer, so he goes to the Sowah Private Investigators Agency for help, partly because he still feels guilty for disowning his son when he came out.

PI Emma Djan is assigned the case but quickly learns of a complication that prevents her from teaming up as usual with Jojo, her trusted colleague. Emma is the only one at work who knows Jojo is gay, and now he reveals something else: for some time, Jojo was dating Marcelo, the victim.

Working with Manu, whom she’s never gotten along with, Emma goes undercover in the International Congress of Families, a powerful organization seeking to criminalize homosexuality in African countries. As Emma infiltrates the ICF, she uncovers a web of deceit and hypocrisy and discovers that the mastermind behind the murders is someone much closer than she ever imagined. Emma must race against time to unmask the killer, protect the vulnerable LGBTQ+ community, and bring justice to the victims, all while navigating the dangerous waters of politics, power, and personal secrets." 

Title: French Quarter Fright Night

Author: Ellen Byron

Series: #3 in the Vintage Cookbook cozy series set in New Orleans, Louisiana

256 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

 

Synopsis: "It's Halloween in New Orleans, and the staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum is setting up a fantastic haunted house tour for their visitors. But when flashy movie star Blaine Taggart and his entourage move into the mansion next door, gift shop proprietor Ricki James-Diaz gets a fright of her own.

While Ricki is excited about the potential business the tours will bring to her vintage cookbook shop, she's less thrilled by former friend Blaine's arrival in town. Then Bon Vee's prop tomb becomes a real tomb for Blaine's nasty assistant, and suddenly everyone at Bon Vee is a murder suspect. There isn't a ghost of a chance one of them committed the crime, but with NOPD busy tackling the mischief and mayhem generated by the spooky holiday, it falls on Ricki and her friends to catch the killer.

As the Big Easy gears up for the Big Scary, it seems everyone has skeletons in their closets. Can Ricki reveal the shadowy killer before someone else becomes part of the Halloween horror show?" 

=== September 10 ===

Title: Death at the Sanatorium

Author: Ragnar Jónasson

Standalone thriller set in Iceland

320 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

 

Synopsis: "1983

At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects: the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released.

Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed.

2012

Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department―the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from.

He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before." 

Title: The Examiner

Author: Janice Hallett

Standalone mystery set in England

480 pages

 

Synopsis: "University professor Gela Nathaniel must make her new master’s program in multimedia art succeed. If it doesn’t, then Royal Hastings University will cut her funding and she’ll be out of the job she loves. The six students in this inaugural course will be key to that success…but how well has she selected the team?

The students include a talented young sculptor who is determined to graduate with top grades, a former gallery owner with limited artistic skills, a single mother more interested in a paycheck than homework, a people pleaser who struggles with technology, a marketing executive suffering from burnout, and a successful artist who seems rather overqualified for the program.

At the end of the academic year, when the examiner arrives to grade the students’ final project, he finds himself asking what happened. Because if someone in that course isn’t in mortal danger, then they are already dead. But who, and why?

He wants us to read through the students’ coursework, texts, message boards, and final essays to see if we can find the answers. Only one thing is certain: nothing about this course has been left to chance, and each of these students has their own very different agenda." 

=== September 24 ===

Title: The Hitchcock Hotel

Author: Stephanie Wrobel

Standalone thriller set in the White Mountains of the East Coast

352 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittlng: Books

Synopsis: "Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.

To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.

But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.

After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body."

Title: Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II

Author: Abbott Kahler

Standalone historical non-fiction set in the Galápagos Islands

352 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

 

Synopsis: "At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galápagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.

As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder.

Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia—and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed." 

Title: A Grave in the Woods

Author: Martin Walker

Series: #17 in the Bruno Chief of Police series set in France

304 pages

 

Synopsis: "When Abby, an American archaeologist, arrives in St. Denis on the heels of her divorce, she hopes to make a new life for herself as a specialist guide for visiting tourists. So when a local British couple discover a grave from World War II on their property, Abby is able to put her training to good use. As it turns out, in the grave are the remains of two German women and an Italian submarine officer who had a big secret to hide. The women are suspected of having had links to the German garrison in Bordeaux during the war. It’s up to Bruno, just recovered from a gunshot wound earlier in the year, to unravel the mystery—and its contemporary relevance. His task is made more difficult by the horrible heat-dome summer, which is raising the temperature for miles around, as unprecedented amounts of rain drench the Massif Central and threaten increasingly dramatic floods
.
As Bruno drills to the heart of the case, matters get even more complicated when both Abby’s financially distressed ex-husband and a mysterious dashing Italian naval officer arrive, with very different ideas in mind. Once again, Bruno is left to serve the guilty their just rewards, and his friends, some sumptuous Perigordian cuisine." 

=== September 30 ===

Title: Opal

Author: Patricia Wolf

Series: #3 in the Lucas Walker police procedural series set in Australia

320 pages

 

Synopsis: "DS Lucas Walker is out bush with his little sister Grace from Boston. They're fetching his cousin Blair, who's been mining boulder opal in Kanpara. The town is tense with rumours of a big opal find, and Blair wants out.

But Kanpara is in Channel Country, and when the three try to leave the next day, they find themselves completely cut off. A deluge far north has flooded the rivers overnight, making the roads impassable. Then Blair receives a shocking phone call.

Two bodies have been found, brutally murdered.

Trapped, with a killer in their midst, Walker is in a race to uncover the murderer before the water recedes. And when Blair is arrested by local police, the stakes couldn't be higher. With all his focus on clearing his cousin's name, will Walker see how much danger his sister is in before it's too late?

The third thrilling installment in the gripping and bestselling DS Lucas Walker series is full of breathtaking twists and dark turns - for fans of Jane Harper, Cara Hunter and Chris Whitaker." 

Quite a selection, eh? Which books do you have your eyes on? Inquiring minds would love to know!

October 2023 New Mystery Releases!

 

October is usually the month when the weather finally cools down here in the Sonoran Desert, and I'm looking forward to it. I've been abiding by all the rules all summer long, but it seems that my body doesn't want to cooperate, and I'm sick to death of being stuck at home. I've decided that I'll just wrap myself in Saran Wrap and head on out to places like the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden... and the Heard Museum for good measure. 

Watch out, Phoenix! I'm turning myself loose!

However, until blast-off I've been keeping my eye on new crime fiction. (I know, shocking, isn't it? *wink*) The following list contains my choices for the best new crime fiction being released in October. They're grouped by their release dates, and the covers and synopses are courtesy of Amazon. 

 

Let's see if I'm able to tempt you with any of my choices...

=== October 3 ===

Title: Glory Be

Author: Danielle Arceneaux

Series: #1 in the Glory Broussard cozy series set in the Louisiana bayou.

272 pages

 

Synopsis: "It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment.

When police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story. With her reluctant daughter—who has troubles of her own—in tow, Glory launches a shadow investigation into Lafayette’s oil tycoons, church gossips, a rumored voodoo priestess, nosey neighbors, and longtime ne'er-do wells.

As a Black woman of a certain age who grew up in a segregated Louisiana, Glory is used to being minimized and overlooked. But she’s determined to make her presence known as the case leads her deep into a web of intrigue she never realized Lafayette could harbor." 

Title: Murders of a Feather

Author: Eileen Brady

Series: #3 in the Dr. Kate Vet cozy series set in New York State.

384 pages

 

Synopsis: "Hudson Valley winters can be brutal…and deadly! Dr. Kate is once again on the case (not to mention thin ice) after discovering a young engaged couple frozen to death in the lake. To make matters worse, her temporary receptionist appears to have overdosed from a recreational sedative used at the animal hospital. Kate barely has time to dread Valentine's Day (and the fact that she's alone on this holiday, once again) as the police investigation shows that all three fatalities are in fact homicides. 

 

But who would want the young couple dead, just as they were embarking on a new life together? And who pumped the temp employee full of enough animal tranquilizers to drop an ox? Kate doesn't know where to begin until she stumbles upon a connection between the three victims and decides she needs to investigate further. But will her investigation leave her any time to get to know the handsome large animal vet she's just met on a house call? And is the injured wild crow she's taken under her wing in fact an omen of more bad things to come?" 

 

 

Title: One Last Kill

Author: Robert Dugoni

Series: #10 in the Tracy Crosswhite police procedural series set in Washington State

379 pages

 

Synopsis: "Tracy Crosswhite is reopening the investigation into Seattle’s Route 99 serial killer. After thirteen victims, he stopped hunting and the trail went cold, stirring public outrage. Now, nearly three decades after his first kill, Tracy is expected to finally bring closure to the victims’ families and redeem the Seattle PD’s reputation. Even if it means working with her nemesis, Captain Johnny Nolasco.

Lead detective of the original task force, Nolasco dares Tracy to do what he failed to: close the case. Forming an uneasy alliance, Tracy and Nolasco revisit old leads and pursue new evidence only to unearth high-level corruption and cover-ups as dangerous as the elusive killer himself. At the risk of being exposed, such deadly and powerful forces will go to extremes to stay in the shadows.

That’s just where Tracy and Nolasco are headed―to find the twisted truth behind a killer’s motives, his disappearance, and his chilling comeback."

 

 

=== October 17 ===

 

 

Title: Up on the Woof Top

Author: Spencer Quinn

Series: #14 in the Chet & Bernie humorous P.I. series 

320 pages

 

Synopsis: "Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe) and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing.

At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne’s expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne’s personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil’s Purse, a deep mountain gorge. When our duo discovers that someone very close to Dame Ariadne was murdered in that same spot decades earlier, they start looking into that long ago unsolved crime.

But as they reach into the past, the past is also reaching out for them. Can they unlock the secrets of Dame Ariadne’s life before they too end up at the bottom of the gorge? Is Rudy somehow the key?" 

Title: Home at Night

Author: Paula Munier

Series: #5 in the Mercy Carr law enforcement/working dog series set in Vermont

352 pages

 

Synopsis: "It’s Halloween in Vermont, winter is coming, and five humans, two dogs, and a cat are a crowd in Mercy Carr’s small cabin. She needs more room―and she knows just the place: Grackle Tree Farm, with thirty acres of woods and wetlands and a Victorian manor to die for. They say it’s haunted by the ghosts of missing children and lost poets and a murderer or two, but Mercy loves it anyway. Even when Elvis finds a dead body in the library.

There’s something about Grackle Tree Farm that people are willing to kill for―and Mercy needs to figure out what before they move in. A coded letter found on the victim points to a hidden treasure that may be worth a fortune―if it’s real. She and Captain Thrasher conduct a search of the old place―and end up at the wrong end of a Glock. A masked man shoots Thrasher, and she and Elvis must take him down before he murders them all. Under fire, she and Elvis manage to run the guy off, but not before they are wounded, leaving Thrasher fighting for his life in the hospital, Mercy on crutches, and Elvis on the mend.

Now it’s up to Mercy and Troy and the dogs to track down the masked murderer in a county overflowing with leaf peepers, Halloween revelers, and treasure hunters and bring him to justice before he strikes again and the treasure is lost forever, along with the good name of Grackle Tree Farm…." 

Title: Hunters of the Dead

Author: Steve Hockensmith

Series: #7 in the Holmes on the Range historical/Western series set in Wyoming

272 pages

 

Synopsis: "The A.A. Western Detective Agency takes on a new case in 1894 Wyoming, a land of bandit gangs and rustlers, when a group of scientists come to town in the hopes of rustling up something very different-dinosaur fossils.

With Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer on protection duty, Old Red's obsession with Sherlock Holmes is forced to take a back seat. Until a human body is shockingly discovered during an excavation, that is.

As the mystery deepens, these cowboy detectives must put their sleuthing skills to the test to catch a killer stalking their client's dig site.

With death lurking around every corner, can the Double-A Western Detective Agency catch the killer before it's too late?" 

=== October 24 ===

Title: Tulle Death Do Us Part

Author: Diane Vallere

Series: #4 in the Material Witness cozy series set in central California

250 pages

 

Synopsis: "When the historic Waverly House is transformed into a wedding venue, the town buzzes with excitement. An out-of-town couple with the loosest of local ties has adopted them as their own. But amidst the celebration, tragedy strikes when a guest is found dead in the chapel before the wedding march plays. Suspicion quickly falls on the bride. Poly's ex-boyfriend, the groom-to-be, needles Poly for help in solving the murder, but things take a complicated turn as the bride points the finger--at him.

Poly dives headfirst into a web of secrets and hidden agendas. From the eccentric wedding planner to the envious bridesmaids, she must untangle the knot of clues while navigating chaos of wedding season at her fabric shop. As the investigation unfolds, Poly has a choice: her familiar past or a potential future with the town’s most eligible bachelor. With puns as sharp as tailor's shears and her knack for finding trouble, Poly is determined to expose the real culprit before the bride’s “I do” becomes the bride doing life."

 

 

Title: Jane and the Final Mystery

Author: Stephanie Barron

Series: #15 in the Jane Austen historical series set in England

312 pages

 

Synopsis: "March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen’s health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew Edward brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys’ boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds—and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s dear friend Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William’s name before her illness gets the better of her?
 
Over the course of fourteen previous novels in the critically acclaimed Being a Jane Austen Mystery series, Stephanie Barron has won the hearts of thousands of fans—crime fiction aficionados and Janeites alike—with her tricky plotting and breathtaking evocation of Austen’s voice. Now, she brings Jane’s final season—and final murder investigation—to brilliant, poignant life in this unforgettable conclusion." 

Title: Dangerous Women

Author: Mark de Castrique

Series: #2 in the Secret Lives thriller series featuring 75-year-old Ethel Fiona Crestwater set in Washington, DC

320 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "In a case deciding the future of clean energy, everything hinges on how the chief justice of Supreme Court will lean. DANGEROUS WOMEN stirs up the perfect cocktail of ingenious spy-craft and political intrigue of Thomas Perry's The Old Man brightened with the charming, uncanny energy of Killers of a Certain Age. This urgent, cleverly plotted high stakes thriller is set in motion by botched attack on two law clerks leaving one dead and the other in a coma. The ensuing cover up leaves a string of bodies and too many players at cross-purposes. It also leaves Chief Justice Clarissa Baxter with a target on her back.

 

We'll need an off the grid hero with friends in high places: enter retired FBI agent-turned-boardinghouse landlady, Ethel Fiona Crestwater (legend) and her double-first-cousin-twice-removed Jesse Cooper (sidekick). Although in her mid-seventies, Ethel is no bumbling amateur sleuth; she's a seasoned pro with razor-sharp instincts and Bond-worthy skills. College-aged Jesse brings tech savvy and boundless enthusiasm, along with an innate talent for intrigue. Together, the unlikely duo will face malicious back-stabbing political sycophants, conniving lobbyists, and a motivated assassin bent on removing the Chief Justice from the equation―along with Ethel, who stands defiantly between the hitman and his payday." 

Title: The Christmas Appeal

Author: Janice Hallett

Standalone cozy novella set in England

208 pages

 

Synopsis: "The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes.

Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails, and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production—for good." 

=== October 30 ===

Title: Cheap Trills

Author: Wendall Thomas

Series: #4 in the Cyd Redondo humorous cozy series set in Bali

223 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "It’s 2007 and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, has Eat, Pray, Love fever. Every book club in town is devouring the bestseller and all of Cyd’s senior citizen clients are dying to head to exotic Bali. But the travel agent in Cyd only sees its dangers—three active volcanos, six venomous snake species, no wheelchair ramps, about fifteen possible tropical diseases, and the death penalty for smugglers.

So she’s hurt and furious, but also terrified, when her mother, Bridget, sneaks off with two friends on a Bali tour booked by Cyd’s archnemesis, Peggy Newsome. Of course, Bridget and her friends wind up stranded and smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation. Now Cyd must navigate Balinese culture, battle songbird smugglers and thieving monkeys, commandeer a funicular railway, infiltrate an underground Tupperware network, and find the real killer, all while trying to keep three hungry, endangered Bali Starling chicks alive in her purse . . ."  

=== October 31 ===

Title: Blood Sisters

Author: Vanessa Lillie

Standalone psychological thriller set in Oklahoma

384 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

The truth will be unearthed." 

 

Wow! There's a bumper crop of good new books coming in October, isn't there?

 

Did I manage to add any books to your wish lists? Which ones? Inquiring minds would love to know!

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

 

First Lines: 19 November 2021. Dear Professor Mansfield, I am investigating a mysterious case and suspect you may be able to help. Let me explain.

 

Out of prison after serving a long sentence, Steven "Smithy" Smith decides to devote his time to trying to solve a mystery that has bothered him for decades. Forty years ago, he found a copy of a famous children's book on a bus. The book, by disgraced author Edith Twyford, had margins filled with strange marks and annotations. When he gave the book to his remedial English teacher, Miss Iles, she thought it was part of a secret code that ran through Twyford's novels. When Miss Iles disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy was convinced that she was right. Now it's time to crack the code and find out what happened to his teacher all those years ago.

 

Smithy uses an old iPhone given to him by his estranged son to leave voice recordings of each step of his investigation. While he tracks down childhood friends, he also muses about the events in his life that led to his incarceration. It soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just the author of a forgotten series of children's books-- the Twyford Code holds a great secret, and Smithy could very well be the key.

 

~

 

Puzzle lovers will have a field day with The Twyford Code, although I can see some readers being put off by the format. Steven "Smithy" Smith records each step of his investigation into the long-ago disappearance of his teacher in a series of recordings on an old iPhone, and at the beginning, readers are told that the software used to transcribe the recordings can sometimes make mistakes. As a result, "Miss Iles" becomes "missiles". "Gonna" becomes "gun a" and so on. It can take a bit of getting used to, but this format actually made Smithy's voice more distinctive in my mind as I read.

Aided by Lucy the librarian, Smithy finds himself on a trek down Memory Lane as he tries to find out just what the Twyford Code leads to and what happened to his teacher, Miss Iles. But the further into his investigation we get, red flags begin to go up. Why are old classmates being so evasive? What kind of treasure could the Twyford Code possibly lead to? And just how forthcoming is Smithy being in telling us about his investigation? Could something else be going on?

I really enjoyed the unfolding of all the puzzles and Smithy's character in particular. My deductive skills really got a workout, but by book's end, the resolutions were coming so thick and fast, it was almost overload-- like eating a favorite flavor of ice cream much too fast and then getting brain freeze.

If you love pitting your detective skills against a skilled puzzle master then you must read Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code. No doubt about it, I'll be looking for the other books she's written.

 

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett

eISBN: 9781668003244

Atria Books © 2023

eBook, 333 pages

 

Thriller, Standalone

Rating: B+

Source: Net Galley

January 2023 New Mystery Releases!

 

Although I felt that vast sections of 2022 crept by at a snail's pace, I'm still astonished that 2023 is staring me right in the face. How does that happen? Something tells me that I'll never figure it out.

The monster storms that are plaguing the rest of the country have left the Phoenix area alone. We're not having our usual balmy late fall/early winter weather; however, with temperatures seeming determined to stay in the 50s and 60s. I still get perverse enjoyment from seeing fellow desert dwellers bundled up as if they're venturing out into the Arctic tundra.

 

While I chuckle at all the scarves, knit hats, gloves, and heavy winter coats, I still keep an eye peeled for new mysteries to read-- but of course you knew that already!

 

The following are my picks of the best new crime fiction being released in January. I've grouped them according to their release dates, and the covers and synopses are courtesy of the Amazon showroom. Let's see if any of my choices tickle your fancy, too.

 

 

=== January 3 ===

 

 

Title: Fatal Fascinator

Author: Jenn McKinlay

Series: #7 in the Hat Shop cozy series set in England.

288 pages

 

Synopsis: "It’s wedding season and Viv’s longtime frenemy Piper May is getting married. She convinces Viv and Scarlett to take on the job of designing the headpieces for her “wedding of the year.” The well-to-do bride and her entourage are delighted to have Viv and Scarlett as their famous hat designer guests, but the hat-making pair are really just looking forward to a getaway at a castle in Sussex. It is to be a weekend full of events, culminating in the big ceremony.  
 
Unfortunately, on the first night of the festivities, the groom is found murdered, and the joyous holiday becomes the stuff of nightmares as no one is allowed to leave the castle until the investigation is complete. Although Scarlett assures Harrison Wentworth, her fiancé, that she and Viv will stay out of harm’s way, circumstances force them to step in when a secret affair between the deceased groom and a bridesmaid comes to light, and the murderer takes another life. Scarlett and Viv vow to unveil the killer’s identity before the wedding adds another to its death toll." 

 

 

Title: Breaking the Circle

Author: M.J. Trow

Series: #2 in the Margaret Murray historical series set in 1900s England.

224 pages

 

Synopsis: "Dr Margaret Murray, accomplished archaeologist, and occasional sleuth, calls upon her police connections to investigate who may want to see the Edwardian mediums of London dead. Known for her sharp mind and quick wit, Margaret decides to infiltrate one of the spiritualists circles to narrow down the list of suspects. But soon the killer has Margaret in their sights! Can she capture the culprit and avoid passing beyond the veil?" 

 

 

 

Title: Blaze Me a Sun

Author: Christoffer Carlsson

Standalone police procedural set in Sweden.

448 pages

 

Synopsis: "In February 1986, the Halland police receive a call from a man who claims to have attacked his first victim. I’m going to do it again, he says before the line cuts off. By the time police officer Sven Jörgensson reaches the crime scene, the woman is taking her last breath. For Sven, this will prove a decisive moment. On the same night, Sweden plunges into a state of shock after the murder of the prime minister. Could there possibly be a connection?

As Sven becomes obsessed with the case, two more fall victim. For years, Sven remains haunted by the murders he cannot solve, fearing the killer will strike again. Having failed to catch him, Sven retires from the police, passing his obsession to his son, who has joined the force to be closer to his father.

Decades later, the case unexpectedly resurfaces when a novelist returns home to Halland amid a failed marriage and a sputtering career. The writer befriends the retired police officer, who helps the novelist—our narrator—unspool the many strands of this engrossing tale about a community confronting its shames and legacies.

A #1 bestseller in Sweden, Blaze Me a Sun marks the American debut of the youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year award, the top prize for Swedish crime writers whose past winners include Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell." 

=== January 10 ===

 

 

Title: The Game Is a Footnote

Author: Vicki Delany

Series: #8 in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop cozy series set on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

320 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.  Gemma doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she agrees to ‘eliminate the impossible’. But when Gemma and Jayne stumble across a dead body on the property, they’re forced to consider an all too physical threat.  
 
Gemma and Jayne suspect foul play as they start to uncover more secrets about the museum. With the museum being a revolving door for potential killers, they have plenty of options for who might be the actual culprit.
 
Despite Gemma's determination not to get further involved, it would appear that once again, and much to the displeasure of Detective Ryan Ashburton, the game is afoot.
 
Will Gemma and Jayne be able to solve the mystery behind the haunted museum, or will they be the next to haunt it?" 

Title: Better the Blood

Author: Michael Bennett

Police Procedural set in New Zealand.

336 pages

Synopsis: "An absorbing, clever debut thriller that speaks to the longstanding injustices faced by New Zealand’s indigenous peoples, by an acclaimed Māori screenwriter and director.

A tenacious Māori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to an historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Māori Chief.

Hana realizes that the murders are utu—the Māori tradition of rebalancing for the crime committed eight generations ago. There were six soldiers in the British troop, and since descendants of two of the soldiers have been killed, four more potential murders remain. Hana is thus hunting New Zealand’s first serial killer.

The pursuit soon becomes frighteningly personal, recalling the painful event, two decades before, when Hana, then a new cop, was part of a police team sent to end by force a land rights occupation by indigenous peoples on the same ancestral mountain where the Chief was killed, calling once more into question her loyalty to her roots. Worse still, a genealogical link to the British soldiers brings the case terrifyingly close to Hana’s own family. Twisty and thought-provoking, Better the Blood is the debut of a remarkable new talent in crime fiction."

 

 

Title: Reef Road

Author: Deborah Goodrich Royce

Standalone thriller set in Florida.

320 pages

 

Synopsis: "A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them.

In a nod to the true crime that inspired it, Deborah Goodrich Royce’s Reef Road probes unhealed generational scars in a wrenching and original work of fiction. It is both stunning and sexy and, like a bystander surprised by a curtain left open, you won’t be able to look away." 

=== January 17 ===

 

 

Title: The Motion Picture Teller

Author: Colin Cotterill

Standalone mystery set in Thailand.

240 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Thailand, 1996: Supot, a postman with the Royal Thai Mail service, hates his job. The only bright spot in his life is watching classic movies with his best friend, Ali, the owner of a video store. These cinephiles adore the charisma of the old Western stars, particularly the actresses, and bemoan the state of modern Thai cinema—until a mysterious cassette, entitled Bangkok 2010, arrives at Ali’s store.

Bangkok 2010 is a dystopian film set in a near-future Thailand—and Supot and Ali, immediately obsessed, agree it’s the most brilliant Thai movie they’ve ever seen. But nobody else has ever heard of the movie, the director, the actors, or any of the crew. Who would make a movie like this and not release it, and why?

Feeling a powerful calling to solve the mystery of Bangkok 2010, Supot journeys deep into the Thai countryside and discovers that powerful people are dead set on keeping the film buried." 

=== January 24 ===

 

 

Title: Murder at a Scottish Wedding

Author: Traci Hall

Series: #4 in the Scottish Shire cozy series set on the coast of northern Scotland.

304 pages

 

Synopsis: "As her friend’s matron of honor, Paislee Shaw vows to solve the mystery of a missing brooch and a dying wedding guest . . . Paislee’s specialty sweater shop and yarn business Cashmere Crush, in the charming Scottish village of Nairn, is closed today for a special occasion. Her bonnie bestie Lydia is moments away from walking down the aisle of the church at Old Nairn Kirk to wed Corbin Smythe. Gramps and Paislee’s eleven-year-old son Brody are seated in the pews with the other guests—the only family not in attendance is their black Scottish terrier Wallace. As matron of honor, Paislee is at her friend’s side when Lydia lets out a frantic cry. The Luckenbooth brooch her betrothed gave her is missing. A traditional Scottish love token, the gold heirloom has been in his family for generations and not wearing it could bring bad luck—according to the superstitious Smythes. But the real misfortune falls on a distraught cousin who suddenly disrupts the ceremony and dies with the brooch in her hand. The Smythes insist it’s the curse. But Paislee must broach the subject of…murder. And was the intended victim the guest—or the bride? Only Paislee can determine who to pin the murder on . . ." 

 

 

Title: The Twyford Code

Author: Janice Hallett

Standalone mystery set in England.

333 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Forty years ago, Steven “Smithy” Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford’s novels. And when she disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy became convinced that she had been right.

Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Smithy decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. In a series of voice recordings on an old iPhone from his estranged son, Smithy alternates between visiting the people of his childhood and looking back on the events that later landed him in prison.

But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code holds a great secret, and Smithy may just have the key.

“A modern Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times, London), Janice Hallett has constructed a fiendishly clever, maddeningly original crime novel for lovers of word games, puzzles, and stories of redemption." 

 

 

Title: A Winter Grave

Author: Peter May

Standalone thriller set in Scotland in the year 2051.

368 pages

 

Synopsis: "It is the year 2051. Warnings of climate catastrophe have been ignored, and vast areas of the planet are under water, or uninhabitably hot. A quarter of the world's population has been displaced by hunger and flooding, and immigration wars are breaking out around the globe as refugees pour into neighboring countries.

By contrast, melting ice sheets have brought the Gulf Stream to a halt and northern latitudes, including Scotland, are being hit by snow and ice storms. It is against this backdrop that Addie, a young meteorologist checking a mountain top weather station, discovers the body of a man entombed in ice.

The dead man is investigative reporter, George Younger, missing for three months after vanishing during what he claimed was a hill-walking holiday. But Younger was no hill walker, and his discovery on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven, is inexplicable.

Cameron Brodie, a veteran Glasgow detective, volunteers to be flown north to investigate Younger's death, but he has more than a murder enquiry on his agenda. He has just been given a devastating medical prognosis by his doctor and knows the time has come to face his estranged daughter who has made her home in the remote Highland village.

Arriving during an ice storm, Brodie and pathologist Dr. Sita Roy, find themselves the sole guests at the inappropriately named International Hotel, where Younger's body has been kept refrigerated in a cake cabinet. But evidence uncovered during his autopsy places the lives of both Brodie and Roy in extreme jeopardy.

As another storm closes off communications and the possibility of escape, Brodie must face up not only to the ghosts of his past, but to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that George Younger's investigations had threatened to expose."

 

 

=== January 31 ===

 

 

Title: The Drift

Author: C.J. Tudor

Standalone thriller set in high in the mountains in the winter.

352 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors. They’ll need to work together to escape—with their sanity and secrets intact.

Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board. They are heading to a place known only as “The Retreat,” but as the temperature drops and tensions mount, Meg realizes they may not all make it there alive.

Carter is gazing out the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, something hiding in the chalet’s depths threatens to escape, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails—for good.

The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater danger—one with the power to consume all of humanity."

 

 

Title: Exiles

Author: Jane Harper

Series: #3 in the Aaron Falk police procedural series set in Australia.

368 pages

 

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

 

Synopsis: "Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on his way to a small town deep in Southern Australian wine country for the christening of an old friend's baby. But mystery follows him, even on vacation.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Kim Gillespie's disappearance. One year ago, at a busy town festival on a warm spring night, Kim safely tucked her sleeping baby into her stroller, then vanished into the crowd. No one has seen her since. When Kim's older daughter makes a plea for anyone with information about her missing mom to come forward, Falk and his old buddy Raco can't leave the case alone.

As Falk soaks up life in the lush valley, he is welcomed into the tight-knit circle of Kim’s friends and loved ones. But the group may be more fractured than it seems. Between Falk’s closest friend, the missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge. What would make a mother abandon her child? What happened to Kim Gillespie?" 

From light to dark, from new to old, from right here in the U.S. of A. to much farther afield, there seems to be something for everyone in January, doesn't there?

I was thrilled to see a new book by one of my favorite authors, Colin Cotterill; I've been waiting for one way too long. The premise of The Twyford Code has fascinated me since the first time I read it, and it's always great to see a new book from Australian writer Jane Harper.

Were any of these books already on your Need-to-Read lists? Did I persuade you to add any? Which ones? Inquiring minds would love to know!