Laura Lippman has again written an exciting and entrancing novel with In a Strange City, one of her Tess Monaghan series of detective novels, published by William Morrow and Co. of HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2001.   Edgar Allen Poe has been credited with writing some of the first murder mysteries that we enjoy and recommend to our friends.  In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania there is a grave site which calls itself Poe̵...

Aaron Elkins has authored an incredible novel, one that reveals the inner sanctum of the people who spend decades educating themselves and others on where Neanderthals stand in the tree of life,.with Skeleton Dance, published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2000.   Paleontologists love to argue.  Mostly about whether there should be an “h” in the name of the bipedal species Neanderthal.  Many contend that homo...

Kate Atkinson’s private investigator hero, Jackson Brodie, returns in the enticing adventure One Good Turn, published by Little, Brown and Company, copyright 2006.   Jackson Brodie is on the scene when a small car accident occurs and the automobile owners are sent into a case of extreme road rage.  One of the drivers brings  a baseball bat out of his car and hits the other driver on his temple, knocking him unconscious.  B...

Charles Todd continues his thrilling sequence of Ian Rutledge mystery novels with No Shred of Evidence, published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2016. Ian Rutledge is an inspector for Scotland Yard.  In the summer of 1914 he was engaged to be married to Jean Gordon.  Five years later he released her from that promise after he’d seen the shock and horror in her eyes as she looked at the shell of a man who had returned fro...

Steve Hamilton brings another installment in his five-novel Alex McKnight series in North of Nowhere, published by Thomas Dunne Books, copyright 2013. The novel begins with Alex McKnight receiving an invitation to a friend’s poker game since the usual player, the sixth man, could not attend that evening.  The game will be held at a rich land developer’s mansion on his newly bought six-sided felt poker table.  The game w...

Amanda Cross brings forth a thrilling and dramatic mystery in The Puzzled Heart, published by Ballantine Books, copyright 1998. In this intriguing novel Kate Fansler and her husband Reed are faced with far-right-wing activists who object to her lectures supporting women’s rights.  Reed is kidnapped by these radicals and Kate is sent ransom notes demanding that she retract all her pro-feminist statements and declare that her lect...

Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly, is a historical novel published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2016. Shetterly tells us that her mother, along with four of her schoolmates fresh out of high school, challenged the courses at John Carol University, one of the most renowned engineering colleges in the country.  At the time, the late 30’s and early 40’s, the university was all male students and had the attitu...

Stephen King brings a taste of weird horror and supernatural mystery in Revival, published by Scribner, copyright 2014. Jamie Morton is arranging his toy soldiers on a hill he had constructed when a shadow crosses his battleground then stops over him. Jamie is a young boy in 1962 and is curious about this new preacher who is offering advice on troop placement and attack strategies. The new minister and his wife and son quickly became ...

Stuarts Woods’ skillful writing brings another mystery thriller in White Cargo, published by HarperCollinsPublishers, copyright 1988. This tale begins on a sailboat vacation from Fort Lauderdale to the Panama Canal and then on to the Pacific Ocean. Wendell “Cat’ Catledge, his wife Katie, and their daughter, nicknamed ‘Jinx’, are boarded by pirates from the fishing vessel Santa Maria off the Colombian Coast...

Paris! Just the name brings thoughts of romance and intrigue.  In the first century Before Christ the Romans had named it “Lutitia”. Rome fell and the French renamed it Paris. Laurie R. King has once again demonstrated her brilliance and clever use of suspense, character development, and climactic situations creating an edge-of-your-seat thriller.  The Bones of Paris is published by Thorndike Press, copyright 2013. In 1928-29 the ...