Reviewed By Liz

ISBN: 1593154747

Vanguard Press
Hardcover – 4/28/08

ESCAPE – A Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi Series – From New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum comes Escape, the twentieth and most explosive book in the Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series. This riveting thriller races from inside the courtroom to the mean streets of Manhattan, as New York District Attorney Roger Butch Karp faces two seemingly different situations that will ultimately prove to be shockingly alike.

Robert K. Tanenbaum is the USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times bestselling author of twenty novels, including Counterplay, Fury, Hoax, Absolute Rage, Enemy Within, True Justice, Act of Revenge, Reckless Endangerment, and Malice. He is also the author of the true-crime books Badge of the Assassin and The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer. He lives in Los Angeles.

Check out Robert’s web site at www.escapethebook.com.

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New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the Author or publisher.

ISBN 1894917332

Rendezvous Crime – Paperback
September 1st, 2007

MEMORIES ARE MURDER is a Belle Palmer mystery. Belle is a woman of a certain age who runs a small real estate business in Northern Ontario. Her short but vital peak season is off to a poor start when her co-worker is called away to tend to an injured paramour and she arranges an unusual replacement for herself – a sassy young pregnant woman nicknamed Yoyo. Needless to say, it takes Belle and Yoyo a while to thrash out a comfortable working relationship.

Belle also rents her neighbors’ house to a mysterious stranger – and then discovers that he is actually the boy she dated in high school. They just have time to catch up on each other’s lives before Gary is found dead. Gary, a zoologist and professor, had come north to study the behavior of elk in the area. Belle knows that accidents in remote areas can be fatal, but something about Gary’s death doesn’t sit right with her. When Gary’s death is followed by other unusual incidents, Belle and her new ally Yoyo take matters into their own hands.

MEMORIES ARE MURDER is an interesting blend. On one hand, it is a treasure trove of information about Northern Ontario. Belle Palmer is very in touch with her surroundings and describes for the reader the flora and fauna around her. She also tells us the human history in the area and how people have interacted with the land and animals there. Then there is Belle herself, who is struggling with her business and a father in his declining years. And when Gary re-enters her life, her worldview gets somewhat tilted as she has to reassess past events in light of new information. All in all, an interesting book that makes me want to visit the area – with lots of bug spray.

Favorite character? Probably Yoyo because she is unexpected. Did I guess it? Some of it. Will I read another? Yes. How can you pass up a title like BUSH POODLES ARE MURDER?

Check out Lou’s web site at www.louallin.com.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2008

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ISBN 0312377703

St. Martin’s Minotaur – Hardcover
January 8th 2008

I am hoping that DEATH WAS THE OTHER WOMAN will turn out to be the first book in a series about Kitty Pangborn. Kitty has taken a job as the secretary for PI Dex Theroux in Depression Era L.A. This is a big step down for the young society woman and it was forced upon her by the loss of the family fortune and her father’s suicide after the stock market crash. While it might seem that Kitty has the weight of the world on her shoulders, she is soldiering on bravely and appreciates that she could do a lot worse in current economic climate. And she is quite fond of Dex, a mook on the outside, but a war vet who’s experiences have left him fragile and who brings out Kitty’s protective instincts, rather than her romantic ones.

When Dex’s drinking causes Kitty to worry that he will crack up the car on his way to a stakeout, she insists on driving him. But the two of them end up falling asleep in the car during the long wait and awake to find a murdered man. What started off as a simple tail job on a straying lover becomes complicated when the body disappears and the police show up to question Dex and he and Kitty are dragged into a quagmire.

Dialog in historical mysteries is an interesting thing. The author has to walk a fine line between capturing the way people of the day thought and spoke and disturbing the modern reader by appearing fake. I find that the dialog in noir genre has a tendency to sound goofy as characters talk about torpedoes fighting over lettuce with their roscoes (those are hired killers, money, and pistols to you and me). But the spin that Richards puts on this noir tale – telling it from the point of view of the outsider girl Friday – gives the story a kind of quirkiness that allows the lingo to go by without much trouble.

Did I guess it? Some of it. Favorite character? Dex’s buddy, Mustard, a born fixer. Will I read another? Yes. The odd pairing of Kitty and Dex makes this book – hopefully a series – a winner.

Check out Linda’s web site at http://lindalrichards.com/.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2008

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ISBN: 1894917626

RendezVous Crime
Trade Paperback 4/28/08

THE RIVER RUNS ORANGE – A Meg Harris mystery – During a wild, whitewater paddle down a wilderness river, Meg Harris discovers the skull and bones of a woman whose very existence takes the archeological world by storm. But when her neighbours, the Migiskan Algonquin, declare their rights to the ancient remains, Meg becomes embroiled in a fight that pits ancient beliefs against modern ones and can only lead to murder. As Meg rushes to catch the killer she finds herself daring the river’s fury yet again, this time with the added horror of a raging forest fire.

After working in the high tech industry for over 25 years, R.J. Harlick decided that catching killers was more fun than nabbing the elusive computer bug. She bides her time between Ottawa and her log cabin in the wilds of West Quebec, where she spends much of her time roaming the surrounding forests or paddling its many lakes and rivers. Because of this love for the untamed wilds, she decided to bring its seductive allure to her writing. This she has done in the Meg Harris series, where the wilderness setting plays almost as large a role as her heroine, Meg Harris

Check out R.J.’s web site at www.rjharlick.ca.

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New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the Author or publisher.

Welcome to Sample Chapter Sunday!

For those of you have been here before, welcome back!

Sample Chapter Sunday is the cure for the boring Sunday afternoons when you have no new reading material. You can swing by here and find links to sample chapters of mysteries by favorite authors and authors you haven’t read before.

Any mystery author is welcome to put a link to their online sample chapter by leaving a comment on this post. Hopefully, they will also give us their name, title of the book, and a brief description or synopsis to pique our interest. Tell your friends to come read and your favorite authors to come show off their sample chapters!

To see the access the sample chapters that the authors have posted links to, click on the COMMENTS link below (if you are an author, this is also the place you add a comment and post your book description and sample chapter links).

ISBN: 031237092X

St. Martin’s Minotaur
Hardcover – 4/1/08

SLEIGHT OF HAND – A Jo Banks Mystery – Dr. Jo Banks is well settled in her rather unusual life as one of the few doctors in the New Jersey fields, her office in a motor inn run by a pair of friendly, elderly Jersey-ites.  But New York City is where she grew up, and there are times when she thinks back to those days with her father.  One day, as she is driving home from her rounds at the hospital in the nearby town, she hears a familiar sound coming from a barn.  It is the hum of an out-of-date printing press, a brand her father used. On an impulse, Jo leaves her motorcycle in the road and walks down to the barn housing the machine.

But the printer is hardly welcoming. While she is trying to talk to him, he catches his hand in the press, and Jo bursts into action.  Although she removes the screws from the roller that is clamping the man’s fingers and offers to drive him to the hospital, he refuses to go and insists she treat him in his home. 

The strange episode leads to Jo’s calling daily to attend to the man’s injury.  She learns that he’s living with his daughter—a grown woman who possesses the mind of a child—that they are from New York, and that his wife has mysteriously disappeared.  The printer is roughly grateful for Jo’s care, but he has much on his mind, and he will not leave his house. Jo begins to suspect he is connected to a recent local murder. 

Robin graduated from Germantown Friends School and Smith College (BA/English). While her two daughters were young she owned and operated a printing/advertising firm Barnhouse Press from her home (there was a printing press in the barn and one in the house) and did freelance writing and photography. One daughter claims she was lulled to sleep by the methodical beat of a printing press in the kitchen and a close friend claimed she once found ink in her mashed potatoes!
But Robin had always wanted to write, and on her 50th birthday her husband told her, “It’s now or never.” So she began. She wrote three mystery novels in three years featuring Dr. Andrew Fenimore, an old-fashioned cardiologist who still made house calls. Robin’s amateur sleuth was patterned after her husband, who just happened to also be a cardiologist.
For the next ten years she sent her mysteries out, and for ten years they bounced back like india rubber balls. On her sixtieth birthday, Robin became very discouraged. She was ready to give up when a member of the Delaware Valley Sisters in Crime told her about a contest –the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic Contest for Best Traditional Mystery. .Deciding to give it one last try, she sent in her first Fenimore novel, THE DOCTOR DIGS A GRAVE, and promptly forgot all about it. Nine months later she received a mysterious phone call from a woman who told her, “You’ve won!” At first Robin thought it might be the lottery, until the woman revealed her identity as a senior editor at St. Martin’s Press, and told her THE DOCTOR DIGS A GRAVE had won the contest and they wanted to publish it. Robin’s reaction was to get a migraine headache that lasted for three days!

Check out Robin’s web site at www.robinhathaway.com.

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New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the Author or publisher.

ISBN: 0312370903

St. Martin’s Minotau
Hardcover – 4/15/08

THE SUDOKU PUZZLE MURDERS – A Puzzle Lady Mystery – Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady (who actually couldn’t solve a crossword puzzle to save her life), is surprisingly good at sudoku, so it’s no problem when a Japanese publisher asks her to write a sudoku book. But when two Japanese publishers show up in Bakerhaven to vie for her services, Cora is a little confused. Which one did she actually sign with? Which one has the stunning geisha wife? And which one is about to be arrested for murder? The two men are archenemies and will go to great lengths to ace out each other. But would they stoop to murder? Someone is littering the town with sudoku, crossword puzzles, and dead private eyes. It’s up to Cora, with the help of her niece, Sherry, to solve the puzzle, the sudoku, and the murder, before the killer strikes again.

Check out Parnell’s web site at http://parnellhall.com/.

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New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the Author or publisher.

ISBN: 1590584872

Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover – 4/10/08

ROUX MORGUE – A Mary Ryan Pastry Chef Mystery – San Francisco pastry chef Mary Ryan is back at her old alma mater. Initially ecstatic to be teaching, Mary finds herself trying to straddle both worlds, caught between her original mentors and her contemporaries.
To make matters worse, Homicide Detective O‚’Connor has enrolled as a student, claiming to be on disability from the San Francisco Police Department.
In the middle of this turf war, Mary is confronted by the dean Robert Benson. Mary must either force Coolie Martin to leave the school or lose her job. Why would Coolie‚’s father, a member of the Board of Directors, allow this to happen? But when faculty and staff begin dying, Mary thinks that Coolie‚’s forced exit might only be part of a larger, more sinister plot.
Acting on a hint from O‚’Connor, Mary contacts the only person who can help her: nemesis Thom Woods. Will Mary and Thom uncover the truth before another chef bakes his last pie?

Claire M. Johnson graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in history. Upon applying to graduate school, she received a letter congratulating her upon being accepted and, by the way, there wouldn’t be any jobs anywhere throughout the contiguous United States after graduation. Switching gears, she indulged a lifelong passion for making and eating desserts and applied to the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. She was accepted and completed their sixteen-month course in 1983. Armed with a whip and a knife-roll, she worked as a pastry chef for eight years in San Francisco and Oakland during the height of the food revolution. The passion and frenzied pace characterizing the food scene on the West Coast during the 1980s is well documented in Ms. Johnson’s first novel Beat Until Stiff, for which she won the 1999 Malice Domestic Writers Grant. Ms. Johnson stopped cooking professionally when her children were born and is currently an editor at U.C. Berkeley. She lives in Lafayette, California, with her husband, Mark, two children, Emma and Paul, and numerous animals. Eating at restaurants is still her favorite hobby, with her most severe criticism reserved for the dessert menu.

Check out Claire’s web site at www.rouxmorgue.com.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the Author or publisher.

ISBN 1569475040

Soho Constable – Hardcover
April 1st 2008

RECONSTRUCTION is a book that I would never have picked out for my own reading enjoyment. Suspense isn’t my favorite mystery category and the book deals with a hostage situation at a nursery school, which would seem to indicate violence against children – something I try to avoid. Luckily for me, SOHO press sent me the book anyway. RECONSTRUCTION isn’t just a book, it is a literary striptease that will tantalize you until the wee hours of the morning.

Yes, it is about a hostage situation at a nursery school, but it doesn’t involve the slaughter of innocents that recent events might bring to mind. Instead, it involves a scared young man named Jaime who is looking for someone. Jaime is caught up in circumstances he doesn’t understand and is unable to control. His lover, Miro, has disappeared, possibly with a large sum of money that didn’t belong to him. Before he disappeared, Miro gave Jaime the name of one of his co-workers, Ben Whistler, and told Jaime to find Ben if anything unusual happened. Inside the school, Ben, Jaime, and even the hostages try to piece together the puzzle of Miro’s disappearance. Outside, the hostage negotiators, police, and shadowy government agents are doing much the same. But are they aiming for the right answer or just containment?

RECONSTRUCTION is the most enthralling book that I have read in a long while. Both the book and my reaction to it surprised and delighted me. And, unlike my usual reviews, that is all I am going to tell you because I don’t want to ruin it for you. Plan on reading it in one sitting!

Okay, I do have one other note. RECONSTRUCTION is from a new imprint from SOHO entitled SOHO Constable that features British mysteries. RECONSTRUCTION is Herron’s fourth book and, if it is anything to go by, we should expect more great things from both him and SOHO Constable in the future.

Mick Herron lives in Oxford. His novels, Why We Die, The Last Voice You Hear, and Down Cemetery Road, all follow a group of Oxford residents.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2008

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ISBN 1-59350-027-0

Alyson Books – Paperback
April 1st 2008

FOOL ON THE HILL is the second book in the Tess Camillo series. Tess is a 40-something computer programmer who lives in San Diego and discovers the body of musician Cody Crowne on her morning walk. Tess decides to dig into Crowne’s life and possible motives for his murder because her housemate, Lana, is a longtime Crowne admirer and because Crowne’s death is so unusual – he had been crucified and left in a public park. While religion seems the obvious motive in this unusual killing, Crowne affected the lives of many people during his long career, and not all of them appreciate it.

Tess is helped in her investigations by her housemate, Lana, with whom she has an unusual relationship. Former lovers, Tess and Lana, stayed friends after Lana fell in love with a man and gave up on being bisexual. Since neither of the women have had great success in the romance department, the two live together amicably to combat the high cost of living in Southern California. Though they have very different temperments, the women share a strong bond and Tess hasn’t given up hope that Lana will return to her someday.

The mystery in this book is good and has some delightful red herrings to tantalize the reader, but the character development is what really makes it a winner. I would guess that Hunt followed the old adage to “write what you know” and incorporated a lot of autobiographical information into the character of Tess. Tess’ search for companionship while she hopes for Lana to return to her, her physical and emotional recovery from a mastectomy as a result of breast cancer, and the wonderful internal dialogues she has with herself on such topics as being a middle-aged woman on the outside but a bad-ass, leather-clad, rock music loving rebel on the inside (the latter thought triggered in response to a young man calling her “ma’am”) all ring true. Even if you aren’t a middle-aged California lesbian, I think you will see some part of yourself in Tess because her emotions are so universal and captured so well by Hunt.

Favorite character? The remarkable Tess. Did I guess it? No. Will I read another? Definitely.

Check out Morgan’s web site at www.morganhuntbooks.com.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2008

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