When this is posted, Denis and I will be having fun with our niece, Daisy, who's here from England for two weeks. As you can see, I'm trying to get as much as possible done ahead of time, but who knows how successful I'll be? One thing is certain, though: I'm always on the lookout for new reading material, regardless of what's going on around me!
These are my picks of new crime fiction being released during the month of May. I've grouped them by release date, and the book covers and synopses are courtesy of Amazon.
Hopefully, I've chosen a title or two that tickles your fancy as well as mine. Let's take a look!
=== May 1 ===
Title: A Baby's Bones
Suspense set in present-day England involving a 400-year-old mystery.
464 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "Archaeologist Sage Westfield has been called in to excavate a sixteenth-century well, and expects to find little more than soil and the odd piece of pottery. But the disturbing discovery of the bones of a woman and newborn baby make it clear that she has stumbled onto an historical crime scene, one that is interwoven with an unsettling local legend of witchcraft and unrequited love. Yet there is more to the case than a four-hundred-year-old mystery. The owners of a nearby cottage are convinced that it is haunted, and the local vicar is being plagued with abusive phone calls. Then a tragic death makes it all too clear that a modern murderer is at work..."
Title: See Also Proof
Series: #3 in the Marjorie Trumaine historical series set in 1960s North Dakota.
251 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "Dickinson, North Dakota, 1965. It's a harsh winter, and freelance indexer Marjorie Trumaine struggles to complete a lengthy index while mourning the recent loss of her husband, Hank. The bleakness of the weather seems to compound her grief, and then she gets more bad news: a neighbor's fourteen-year-old disabled daughter, Tina Rinkerman, has disappeared. Marjorie joins Sheriff Guy Reinhardt in the search for the missing girl, and their investigation quickly leads to the shocking discovery of a murdered man near the Rinkermans' house. What had he been doing there? Who would have wanted him dead? And, above all, is his murder connected to Tina's disappearance?
Their pursuit of answers will take Marjorie all the way to the Grafton State School, some six hours away, where Tina lived until recently. And the information she uncovers there raises still more questions. Will the murderer come after Marjorie now that she knows a long-hidden secret?"
Title: The Perfect Mother
Psychological Thriller, Standalone, set in Brooklyn.
336 pages
Synopsis: "
They call themselves the May Mothers—a group of new moms whose babies were born in the same month. Twice a week, they get together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for some much-needed adult time.
When the women go out for drinks at the hip neighborhood bar, they want a fun break from their daily routine. But on this hot Fourth of July night, something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is taken from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter, but her fellow May Mothers insisted everything would be fine. Now he is missing. What follows is a heart-pounding race to find Midas, during which secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are destroyed."
=== May 2 ===
Title: The Otter of Death
Series: #5 in the Gunn Zoo series set on the central coast of California.
235 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "
While taking the yearly "otter count" at a marsh near Gunn Landing Harbor, California, zookeeper Theodora Bentley sees Maureen, her favorite otter, swimming around clutching someone's expensive smartphone. When Teddy rescues the device, she discovers a photograph of a murder-in-progress. A hasty search soon turns up the still-warm body of Stuart Booth, Ph.D., a local Marine Biology instructor.
Booth was a notorious sexual harasser of young female students, so the list of suspects is long enough to make Teddy wonder if the crime will ever be solved. But when her friend, Lila, one of Booth's original accusers, is arrested and charged with his murder, Teddy begins to investigate. This creates considerable tension with Teddy's fiancé, Sheriff Joe Rejas. He believes the ever-inquisitive zookeeper might be putting her own life at risk, and so orders her to butt out.
Concerned for her accused friend, Teddy ignores Joe's ultimatum. She questions not only members of Gunn Landing's moneyed social elite, but also the other side of the financial spectrum - the financially strapped young women willing to do almost anything to pay for their college tuition. Alarmed by Teddy's meddling, Booth's killer fights back - first with a death threat, then via gunshot."
Title: The Bomb Shelter
Series: #9 in the David Mapstone police procedural set in present-day Phoenix, Arizona.
300 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "
Forty years ago, a Phoenix reporter was killed by a car bomb in one of America's most notorious crimes. Three men went to prison - but was there more to the story of Charles Page's assassination? More than three low-level players? Did a kingpin order the hit and get away with it? And what was the real motive? Despite the work of teams of journalists and law and legal professionals, no one yet knows why.
It's a case custom-made for David Mapstone, the historian-turned-sheriff's deputy. And suddenly Mapstone's boss, newly re-elected Sheriff Mike Peralta, promises to reopen the investigation into the only murder of an American journalist, in the US, in modern times. Why?
The promise triggers new murders. The crimes are reenactments of Phoenix's mob-riddled past, where gangsters rubbed elbows with the city's elite amid crosscurrents of corrupt cops, political payoffs, gambling, prostitution, and murder, all shielded by the sunshine image of a resort city. But who is committing them? A former soldier who is an explosives expert and deadly with a knife? A woman with screen-siren looks and extraordinary computer skills? Or someone out of Phoenix's seamy, swinging Seventies with secrets to keep, even though the major power brokers are dead?
Mapstone will need all the help he can get. He enlists a Ph.D. candidate and Black Lives Matter activist to help him comb through sealed archives of the original bombing. Mapstone's wife, Lindsey, a top hacker, rejoins the Sheriff's Office and plays a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the perp or perps - one that goes from the digital to the real and risky world. Somewhere in the house of mirrors surrounding the Page case they must find the key that connects the past to the present."
=== May 15 ===
Title: Fall of Angels
Author: Barbara Cleverly
Series: #1 in the John Redfyre historical series set in 1920s Cambridge, England.
384 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "England 1923: Detective Inspector John Redfyre is a godsend to the Cambridge CID. The ancient university city is at war with itself: town versus gown, male versus female, press versus the police force and everyone versus the undergraduates. Redfyre, young, handsome and capable, is a survivor of the Great War. Born and raised among the city’s colleges, he has access to the educated élite who run these institutions, a society previously deemed impenetrable by local law enforcement.
When Redfyre’s Aunt Hetty hands him a front-row ticket to the year’s St. Barnabas College Christmas concert, he is looking forward to a right merrie yuletide noyse from a trumpet soloist, accompanied by the organ. He is intrigued to find that the trumpet player is—scandalously—a young woman. And Juno Proudfoot is a beautiful and talented one at that. Such choice of a performer is unacceptable in conservative academic circles.
Redfyre finds himself anxious throughout a performance in which Juno charms and captivates her audience, and his unease proves well-founded when she tumbles headlong down a staircase after curtain fall. He finds evidence that someone carefully planned her death. Has her showing provoked a dangerous, vengeful woman-hater to take action?
When more Cambridge women are murdered, Redfyre realizes that some of his dearest friends and his family may become targets, and—equally alarmingly—that the killer might be within his own close circle."
Title: A Howl of Wolves
Series: #4 in the Samantha Clair amateur sleuth series set in present-day London, England.
304 pages
Synopsis: "
Sam Clair figures she’ll be a good sport and spend a night out at the theater in support of her upstairs neighbors, who have small parts in a play in the West End. Boyfriend (a Scotland Yard detective) and all-round good sport Jake Field agrees to tag along to what is apparently an extra-bloody play filled with dramatic, gory deaths galore. So Sam expects an evening filled with faux fatalities. Until, that is, the curtain opens to the second act, revealing a dummy hanging from the rafters, who’s been made up to look suspiciously like Campbell Davison, the director of the production.
When Sam sees the horrified faces of the actors onstage, she realizes that this is indeed not a dummy, but Davison himself―and this death is not part of the show. Now everyone wants to know: who killed Campbell Davison? As Sam learns more about the murdered man, she discovers that he wasn’t all that well-liked amongst the cast and crew, so the suspect list grows. The show must go on―but Sam knows a murderer must be apprehended, so she sets out to find out what happened, and why."
Title: The Dark Angel
Series: #10 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series set in Italy.
352 pages
Synopsis: "It’s not every day that you’re summoned to the Italian countryside on business, so when archaeologist Angelo Morelli asks for Ruth Galloway’s help identifying bones found in the tiny hilltop town of Fontana Liri, she jumps at the chance to go, bringing her daughter along with her for a working vacation. Upon arriving, she begins to hear murmurs of Fontana Liri’s strong resistance movement during World War II and senses the townspeople are dancing around a deeply buried secret. But how could that be connected to the ancient remains she’s been studying?
Ruth is just beginning to get her footing in the dig when she’s thrown off-guard by the appearance of DCI Nelson. And when Ruth’s findings lead them to a modern-day murder, their holidays are both turned upside down, and they race to find out what darkness is lurking in this seemingly picturesque town."
Title: A Million Drops
Author: Victor del Árbol
Literary Thriller, Standalone set in Spain.
640 pages
Synopsis: "Gonzalo Gil is a lawyer stuck in a disaffected life, in a failed career, trying to dodge the constant manipulation of his powerful father-in-law. This monotonous existence is shaken up when he learns, after years without news of his estranged sister, Laura, that she has committed suicide under dramatic circumstances. Her death pushes the fragile balance of Gonzalo's life as both a father and husband to the limit.
Resolutely investigating the steps that led his sister to suicide, he will discover that Laura is suspected of having murdered a Russian gangster who had kidnapped and killed her young son. But what seems to be revenge is just the beginning of a tortuous path that will take Gonzalo through the untold annals of his family's past that he would rather not face. He will have to enter fully into the fascinating story of his father, Elias Gil--the great hero of the resistance against fascism, the young Spanish engineer who traveled to the USSR committed to the ideals of the revolution, who was betrayed, arrested, and confined on the infamous Nazino Island, and who became a key figure, admired and feared, of Spain's darkest years."
Title: How It Happened
Series: #1 in the Rob Barrett thriller series set in Maine.
368 pages
Synopsis: "Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and heroin addict whose petty crimes are well-known to the rural Maine community where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.
Not Rob Barrett, the FBI investigator and interrogator specializing in telling a true confession from a falsehood. He's been circling Kimberly and her conspirators for months, waiting for the right avenue to the truth, and has finally found it. He knows, as strongly as he's known anything, that Kimberly's story-a grisly, harrowing story of a hit and run fueled by dope and cheap beer that becomes a brutal stabbing in cold blood is how it happened. But one thing remains elusive: where are Jackie and Ian's bodies?
After Barrett stakes his name and reputation on the truth of Kimberly's confession, only to have the bodies turn up 200 miles from where she said they'd be, shot in the back and covered in a different suspect's DNA, the case is quickly closed and Barrett forcibly reassigned. But for Howard Pelletier, the tragedy of his daughter's murder cannot be so tidily swept away. And for Barrett, whose career may already be over, the chance to help a grieving father may be the only one he has left."
=== May 22 ===
Title: The Outsider
Standalone set in the present day.
576 pages
Synopsis: "An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the
King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most
unsettling and compulsively readable stories.
An eleven-year-old
boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and
fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular
citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher,
husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son
Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland
has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA
evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems
ironclad.
As the investigation expands and horrifying answers
begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear,
generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland
seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer
comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can."
=== May 29 ===
Title: Dead Girls
Standalone Thriller set in England.
304 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "It’s been two months since a serial killer brutally attacked police detective Alisha Green and left her for dead. Two months since she could effortlessly recall simple things since her mind felt remotely sound. The nameless killer thinks he knows her, thinks she’s just another dead girl among many. Ali Green plans to show him he’s dead wrong about that.
Ali has two enemies now: the dangerous man she’s hunting and her own failing memory. As explosive new evidence comes to light and conflicting accounts from a witness and a surviving victim threaten both her investigation and her credibility, she begins to question what is and isn’t real. And now Ali has no choice but to remember the past…before it buries her."
Title: Crime & Punctuation
Series: #1 in the Deadly Edits cozy series set in the Catskills area of New York state.
304 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.
Synopsis: "When perky novice writer Tiffany Scott knocks at her door holding a towering manuscript, Mikki expects another debut novel plagued by typos and sloppy prose. Instead, she finds a murder mystery ripped from the headlines of Lenape Hollow’s not-too-distant past. The opening scene is a graphic page-turner, but it sends a real chill down Mikki’s spine after the young author turns up dead just like the victim in her story . . .
Mikki refuses to believe that Tiffany’s death was accidental, and suspicions of foul play solidify as she uncovers a strange inconsistency in the manuscript and a possible motive in the notes. Then there’s Tiffany’s grandmother and husband, who aren’t exactly on friendly terms over the local area’s planned rejuvenation efforts . . .
Unable to convince police that they are focused on the wrong suspect, Mikki must rely on her keen eyes to catch the truth hidden in Lenape Hollow. As she gets closer to cracking the case, only one person takes Mikki’s investigation seriously—the cunning killer who will do anything to make this chapter of her life come to a very abrupt ending . . ."
Well... did I manage to tempt you with any of my picks? Which ones?
I love the cover for Betty Webb's The Otter of Death, and Kaitlyn Dunnett's Crime & Punctuation intrigues me. I'm not entirely sure that I like it. What do you think? As for the worst cover of the month, my hat is off to The Perfect Mother. What were they thinking?
