Archives de catégorie : Mystery

THE CLOCK STRUCK MURDER de Betty Webb

One woman’s trash is another woman’s—lost Chagall masterpiece?!?

THE CLOCK STRUCK MURDER
by Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, April 2024

Expat Zoe Barlow has settled well into her artist’s life among the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris. When a too-tipsy guest at her weekly poker game breaks Zoe’s favorite clock, she’s off to a Montparnasse flea market to bargain with the vendor Laurette for a replacement. What Zoe didn’t bargain for was the lost Chagall painting that’s been used like a rag to wrap her purchases! Eager to learn whether Laurette has more Chagalls lying about like trash, Zoe sets off to track her down at her storage shed. With no Laurette in sight, Zoe snoops around and indeed finds several additional Chagalls—and then she finds Laurette herself, dead beneath a scrap heap, her beautiful face bashed in.

With Paris hosting the 1924 Summer Olympics, the police are far too busy with touristrelated crimes to devote much time to the clock seller’s murder. After returning the paintings to a grateful Marc Chagall, Zoe begins her own investigation. Did the stolen paintings play any part in the brutal killing? Or was it a crime of passion? Zoe soon discovers that there were many people who had reason to resent the lovely Laurette. But who hated the girl enough to stop her clock permanently? When Zoe discovers a second murder victim, the pressure is on to find the killer before time—and luck—run out.

As a journalist, Betty Webb interviewed U.S. presidents, astronauts, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as the homeless, dying, and polygamy runaways. The dark Lena Jones mysteries are based on stories she covered as a reporter. Betty’s humorous Gunn Zoo series debuted with the critically acclaimed The Anteater of Death, followed by The Koala of Death. A book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Organization of Zoo Keepers.

THIS GIRL’S A KILLER d’Emma C. Wells

Meet your new best friend (who also just happens to be a serial killer). For readers of Finlay Donovan is Killing It and The Bandit Queens comes a bright and biting thriller following Cordelia Black, a best friend, a businesswoman, and, in her spare time, a killer of bad men.

THIS GIRL’S A KILLER
by Emma C. Wells
Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, October 2024

Ask Cordelia Black why she did it. The answer will always be: He had it coming.

Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: Her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip), and killing bad men.

By day she’s an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men—monsters who think they’ve evaded justice, until they meet her. Sure, the evening news may have started throwing around phrases like « serial killer, » but Cordelia knows that’s absurd. She’s not a killer, she is simply karma. And being karma requires complete and utter control.

But when Cordelia discovers a flaw in her perfectly designed system for eliminating monsters, pressure heightens. And it only intensifies when her best friend starts dating a man Cordelia isn’t sure is a good person. Someone who might just unravel everything she has worked for.

Soon enough Cordelia has to come face to face with the choices she’s made. The good, the bad, and the murderous. Both her family, and her freedom, depend on it.

Emma C. Wells loves anti-heroes, dark humor, witty banter, and ride-or-die friendships. Twisty relationships are her kryptonite (or catnip—depending on how you look at it) and her favorite characters are often called unlikable (but at least they’re never boring). Emma enjoys camping, yoga, researching spooky folklore, and collecting copies of Wuthering Heights from used bookstores.

WHO BY FIRE de Greg Rhyno

Dame Polara has spent her life running from her father’s shady job as a PI. Now she must rely on the skills he taught her if she’s to protect herself and the people she care about most.

WHO BY FIRE
by Greg Rhyno
Cormorant Books, February 2024
(via The Rights Factory)

Haunted by a childhood spent picking locks, tailing suspects, and helping her hard-boiled PI father solve cases, Dame Polara has spent most of her adult life running from his shady profession and the memories she associates with it. What Dame wants now is simple — her safe job preserving heritage buildings, adequate care for her father’s mounting health complications, and to raise a family of her own. But life doesn’t seem to be going her way.

After serving her an eviction notice, Dame’s landlord offers her an alternative: she can keep her apartment if she investigates his mysterious wife, whom he suspects of cheating. When the investigation uncovers a serial arsonist burning down the very buildings Dame fights to preserve, she finds herself pulled right back into the seedy underworld of her father’s old profession. Now, she must rely on the skills he taught her if she’s to protect herself and the people she cares about most.

Greg Rhyno is the author of To Me You Seem Giant. This debut novel was nominated for a ReLit Award and an Alberta Book Publishing Award. His writing has appeared in a number of journals including Hobart, Riddle Fence, and Prism International. He completed an MFA at the University of Guelph and lives with his family in Guelph, Ontario.

BLUE HOTEL de Dann McDorman

BLUE HOTEL’s puzzle-like structure, in which each new section of the novel alters the reader’s understanding of what came before, accompanies a deeply felt meditation on death, the nature of reality, and our reasons for being and non-being.

BLUE HOTEL
by Dann McDorman
Knopf, Spring 2025
(via David Black Literary)

A man wakes up in a room with no idea where he is or how he got there. The room has no door nor windows. He has no way to tell the time. He has nothing to eat except for the endless cartons of Cup O’ Noodles (Original flavor) with which he is tormented by his captors. The stubble on his chin doesn’t grow. He loses his mind; he gets his back. Then one day, one hour, one minute, a vintage black typewriter appears on the desk, gleaming like a beetle. He warily taps out his name: J-O-H-N T-H-O-M-A-S. He sits down and begins to write…
Thus begins BLUE HOTEL, during which readers follow John Thomas as he tries to solve the mystery of his imprisonment. His surprising escape, and the discovery of what lies outside his room, launches an exploration during which readers will encounter a strange menagerie of characters: doomsday cultists, a Reality Studies professor, a Big Tech billionaire, an immortal chatbot, a woman who thought she could fly, and two sisters who speak to the dead — plus a few other, rather more surprising personalities…
BLUE HOTEL, Dann McDorman’s follow-up to West Heart Kill, features his trademark mixture of plot twists and philosophical inquiry. It’s a novel filled with bizarre facts and heretical histories, ranging from the origins of artificial intelligence to 19th century revolutionary politics in Canada. BLUE HOTEL’s puzzle-like structure, in which each new section of the novel alters the reader’s understanding of what came before, accompanies a deeply felt meditation on death, the nature of reality, and our reasons for being and non-being.

Dann McDorman is an Emmy-nominated TV news producer, who has also worked as a newspaper reporter, book reviewer, and cabinet maker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.

THE WITCH’S ORCHARD d’Archer Sullivan

Wonderfully atmospheric, with vivid characters, and a dose of superstition and folklore, this novel stands out.

THE WITCH’S ORCHARD
by Archer Sullivan
Minotaur Books, Summer 2025

Former Air Force Special Investigator Annie Gore joined the military right after high school to escape the fraught homelife of her childhood. Now, she’s getting by as a private investigator and her latest case takes her to a small mountain town, not unlike the one where she grew up.

Ten years ago, three little girls went missing from their small town. One was returned, but the others were never seen again. After all this time without answers, the brother of one of the girls wants to hire Annie to see if she can find any new leads—anything that might help give him closure to the event that tore his family apart. Annie knows that a case this old might be a fool’s errand, but the bills are piling up and she can’t turn down a job—not even one that dredges up her own painful past.

In the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Annie begins to track the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been buried, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.

Archer Sullivan is a ninth generation Appalachian. She’s moved thirty-seven times and has lived everywhere from Monticello, Kentucky to Manhattan, New York and from Black Mountain, North Carolina to Beverly Hills, California. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Tough, Shotgun Honey, Reckon Review, Rock and a Hard Place and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024.