Cape Fever
Nadia Davids. Simon & Schuster, $27 (240p) ISBN 978-1-6680-9073-2
Set in a fictional British colony in 1920, this striking psychological thriller from Davids (An Imperfect Blessing) finds a housemaid questioning her employer’s motives. It dismays Soraya Matas to learn that her new job cooking and cleaning for widowed British settler Alice Hattingh is live-in; Soraya had hoped to continue residing in the Muslim Quarter, where she could freely practice her religion. Soraya’s family needs the money, however, so she makes peace with only seeing her loved ones once a fortnight, and befriends the benevolent ghost of her predecessor. Incorrectly believing Soraya to be illiterate, Mrs. Hattingh offers to write and receive her correspondence with her fiancé, aspiring teacher Nour. Postage is expensive, so Soraya accepts, but when Mrs. Hattingh prevents Soraya from examining what she writes and receives in return, Soraya starts to fear the woman is taking liberties with the correspondence. Her misgivings multiply when Mrs. Hattingh thrice postpones Soraya’s next visit home. Taut plotting, electric prose, and Soraya’s paranoid first-person narration set this slim, atmospheric novel apart. Gothic touches combine with elements of magical realism and real-life historical horrors to forge a chilling fable that’s at once familiar and singular. It’s a stunner. Agent: Bonnie McKiernan, Wylie Agency. (Dec.)
The Snow Lies Deep: A Mercy Carr Mystery
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Paula Munier. Minotaur, $29 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-38998-5
In Munier’s captivating seventh case for former Army corporal Mercy Carr and her retired bomb-sniffing Belgian shepherd, Elvis (after The Night Woods), Mercy tackles a string of murders that hit uncomfortably close to home. At the outset, the sleepy town of Northshire, Vt., is gearing up for its annual Winter Solstice Soiree. On the night of the party, the event’s Santa Claus—Lazlo “Uncle Laz” Ford, who also reluctantly serves as Northshire’s mayor—fails to show up. Concerned, Mercy and Elvis go sniffing around town, only to discover a gruesome scene in the woods: Uncle Laz’s dead body, hollowed out and stuffed with a flaming yule log. That turns out to be merely the first in a string of gruesome murders that plague picturesque Northshire before the holidays, which a determined Mercy discovers might have something to do with mild-mannered Uncle Laz’s secret past. Munier begins by hitting familiar small-town mystery beats, then ups the stakes with unexpected twists and hints of international intrigue. The results will keep even longtime fans of the author on their toes. (Dec.)
Fun City Heist
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Michael Kardos. Severn House, $29.99 (208p) ISBN 978-1-4483-1723-3
Kardos (Bluff) triumphs in this playful caper narrated by an ex-musician. Mo Melnick was the drummer for Sunshine Apocalypse, a quartet of New Jersey friends who first performed together as teenagers. The band had early success, including a record deal, which ended when guitarist Johnny Clay moved away and sued the remaining members to prevent them from performing under the band’s name. Twelve years later, Mo, who rents beach umbrellas and chairs on the Jersey Shore for a living, is surprised when Johnny resurfaces and pitches a Sunshine Apocalypse reunion on July 4 at the local Fun City amusement park. Mo eventually learns that Johnny, who needs cash for ALS treatment, intends to use the performance as a cover for a complicated plan in which he and the rest of the band will rob the park on a day when it’s flush with cash. Mo agrees, despite his misgivings, only to find out surprising new information in the days leading up to the heist. Kardos renders his washed-up protagonist with tenderness and sympathy, and he orchestrates the tale’s madcap climax with aplomb. Carl Hiaasen fans will eat this up. Agent: Judith Weber, Sobel Weber Assoc. (Dec.)
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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Ace Atkins. Morrow, $30 (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-329344-1
A 14-year-old boy’s suspicion that his mom’s boyfriend might be a Russian spy ignites this busy comedic thriller from Atkins (Don’t Let the Devil Ride). In 1985 Atlanta, Peter Bennett worries that his scientist mom’s new flame, Gary—who has a funny accent, is not in the phone book, and keeps a gun in his car—is less interested in romance than in gaining access to her work for a government contractor. Peter knows that nobody in authority will take a high school freshman seriously, so he gets in touch with his favorite author, crime novelist Dennis “Hotch” Hotchner, whose writing career flamed out a decade ago. Hotch agrees to help, but trouble soon follows: a Russian hit man appears on the scene, a coworker of Peter’s mom is found murdered, and the FBI gets involved. When Peter’s kidnapped, Hotch and his sidekick, a brawny drag queen named Jackie Demure, shift into high gear. Atkins peppers the exuberant action with colorful references to ’80s pop culture, but as the cast of characters expands, the book’s many subplots start to stall the narrative momentum. It’s hard not to admire his ambition, but Atkins has done better before. Agent: Esther Newberg, CAA. (Dec.)
The Cheerleader
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Marina Evans. Pegasus Crime, $28.95 (384p) ISBN 979-8-89710-036-1
Former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Evans sets her glitzy if uneven debut in the claustrophobic world of professional sports. Jentry Rae Randall, the captain of the Dallas Lonestars Cheerleaders, is the most popular dancer in the Federation Football League. When Jentry is found dead in the Lonestars locker room under suspicious circumstances, pandemonium ensues. Budding filmmaker Nikki Keegan is already shooting a prosaic documentary about the team when Jentry dies, so she seizes on the scandal with hopes of turning her project into a true crime series that might get snapped up by a streaming service. Nikki’s first interviewee is Shaunette Simmons, Jentry’s teammate and best friend, who divulges a surprising amount about Jentry’s personal life. Then Shaunette’s car is run off the road and the young cheerleader is left for dead, making it clear that Jentry’s death was not a one-off. Evans paints a bleak and fascinating portrait of the cheerleaders’ grueling practice schedule and tightly restricted personal lives, but clanging dialogue and a few too many plot conveniences muddy the playing field. After getting off to a strong start, this lands with a whimper. Agent: Kristina Perez, Perez Literary. (Jan.)
Silent Bones
Val McDermid. Atlantic Crime, $28 (448p) ISBN 978-0-8021-6439-1
McDermid is at the top of her game in the masterful latest installment of her DCI Karen Pirie series (after Past Lying). When human remains are discovered in a collapsed section of Scotland’s M73 highway, Karen calls on detective sergeants Daisy Mortimer and Jason “The Mint” Murray to investigate. Meanwhile, in a separate case, Daisy interviews Drew Jamieson, who’s gathered evidence that his brother Tom’s fatal fall on Edinburgh’s Scotsman Steps several years earlier may have been murder, despite police insistence that it was an accident. Staff at the nearby Scott Monument Hotel recall a disagreement between Tom and the hotel’s sommelier, Bob Watson, because Watson quit the pair’s football club to join a mysterious book group called the Justified Sinners. When the M73 remains are identified as those of investigative journalist Sam Nimmo, who disappeared from the scene of his girlfriend’s murder a decade ago, Pirie pinpoints a connection between Sam’s death, Tom’s death, and the Justified Sinners, and sends her team barreling after the shadowy organization. McDermid’s procedural instincts are as sharp as ever, and she balances them with wrenching developments in Karen’s personal life, including her fraught relationship with Syrian activist Rafiq Yasin. Readers will rest easy knowing they’re in the hands of a seasoned storyteller. (Dec.)
No One Aboard
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Emy McGuire. Graydon House, $18.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-1-5258-3162-1
A filthy-rich family suffers a seafaring disaster in this gnarly tale from newcomer McGuire. Two weeks after the Cameron clan casts off from New Haven aboard their multimillion-dollar yacht for a voyage down the East Coast to celebrate twins Rylan and Tia’s 18th birthday, the vessel is discovered 80 miles off the coast of Florida with no one on board. Authorities, alerted to the ghost ship by Jerry Baugh, a middle-aged fisherman who has never recovered from his own family’s nautical tragedy years earlier, scramble to locate the four Camerons and their three-person crew. As the quest for answers presses on, McGuire weaves in flashbacks to the ill-fated voyage, which is tempestuous from the outset courtesy of secrets, lies, and betrayals among the passengers. Despite a couple of whopping contrivances, including a link between the missing Cameron patriarch and the man who finds his yacht, McGuire’s consistently riveting plot keeps the pages flying. Readers won’t be able to rest until they discover what befell the Camerons. Agent: Ann Rose, Tobias Agency. (Dec.)
Pearls and Poison: A Rose Gallagher Mystery
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Erin Lindsey. Severn House, $29.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-4483-1522-2
Lindsey’s sprightly fourth case for Pinkerton detective Rose Gallagher (after The Silver Shooter) finds the intrepid investigator of paranormal activity probing a series of suspicious deaths in Gilded Age New York City. In October 1887, an obsession with the occult swirls through the upper echelons of Manhattan society. Meanwhile, in a dingy apartment building downtown, a series of people have died by poison under bizarre circumstances: none of the victims were tenants of the building, nor did they have relatives living there, and all died on the building’s unused ground floor near strange symbols on the wall. The wealthy parents of the most recent victim hire Rose to look into the matter; it’s her first solo case since her partner, Thomas, moved to San Francisco without warning. Looking for potential clues, Rose joins Mark Twain and other high-profile guests at a séance hosted by purported psychic Madame Mercury, after which the killer targets Rose’s family. Fortifying her well-oiled whodunit plot with dashes of fantasy and romance, Lindsey serves up another appealing adventure for the intrepid Rose. It’s an inspired romp. Agent: Amanda Jain, BookEnds Literary. (Dec.)
Murder in Manhattan
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Julie Mulhern. Forever, $17.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-5387-7356-7
Mulhern (the Country Club Murders novels) launches a snappy historical series centered on 1920s nightlife columnist Winifred “Freddie” Archer. One night, Freddie witnesses a shooting outside a Manhattan club and notices an elegantly dressed young woman she swears she’s seen before fleeing the scene. When other, similar murders follow, Freddie draws from her reporting to compile a suspect list and puts herself directly in harm’s way as she tries to ferret out the culprit. Mulhern peppers her narrative with real-life figures to charming effect: Freddie, who’s based on 1920s New Yorker columnist Lois Long, gossips with legendary sports columnist Ring Lardner, trades quips with Dorothy Parker during a bumpy ride uptown in a Packard, and sips gin rickeys with actor Tallulah Bankhead. All the while, she proves to be a resourceful heroine whose professional prowess as both a journalist and a gumshoe impresses without straining credibility. Immersive, fast-paced, and entertaining, this promises good things to come. Agent: Gordon Warnock, Fuse Literary. (Dec.)
The King’s Ransom: A Recovery Agent Novel
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Janet Evanovich. Atria, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-1-6680-2747-9
Bestseller Evanovich’s fun, frothy sequel to The Recovery Agent follows contractor Gabriela Rose on a globe-trotting quest for stolen treasures. Gabriela’s latest client is Harley Patch, cousin of her ex-husband, Rafer Jones. Recently promoted to interim president of a privately owned bank in New York, Harley spearheads a new program to insure rare artworks and artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone, a couple of Van Goghs, and a sarcophagus, collectively valued at $12 billion. Then those masterworks go missing, and the bank has insufficient funds to make the necessary payouts. Unless the items are retrieved soon, “someone is going to jail, and Harley is set up perfectly to take the hit,” as Gabriela puts it. She, Rafer, and the hapless Harley set out to retrieve the items from whoever swiped them. Their pursuit takes them to London, Cairo, Paris, Athens, and Milan, each of which Evanovich renders with dazzling precision. Gabriela, meanwhile, is an ideal action protagonist: resourceful, daring, shrewd, and sexy. The result is a swift and enjoyable adventure that proves this series has legs. Agent: Celeste Fine, Park & Fine. (Nov.)
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1 - 10 of 30 Mystery/Thriller reviews
All around the shrine of the temple there were prayers fastened, wherever there was a place for fastening them. On the left of the altar there was a large lattice, and this lattice had hundreds of prayers attached to it, some of them folded and others open. Several old men and women were leaning against this lattice, or squatted on the floor in front of it, engaged in selling prayers; and they appeared to be doing a thriving business. The boys bought some of these prayers to send home as curiosities; and they also bought some charms and beads, the latter not unlike those used by Catholics, and having a prominent place in the Japanese worship. Then there were votive tablets on the walls, generally in the form of pictures painted on paper or silk, or cut out of thin paper, like silhouettes. One of them represents a ship on the water in the midst of a storm, and is probably the offering of a merchant who had a marine venture that he wished to have the goddess take under her protection. Shoes and top-knots of men and women were among the offerings, and the most of them were labelled with the names of the donors. These valueless articles are never disturbed, but remain in their places for years, while costly treasures of silver or gold are generally removed in a few days to the private sanctuary of the goddess for fear of accidents. Even in a temple, all the visitors cannot be trusted to keep their hands in check. It is intimated that the priests are sometimes guilty of appropriating valuable things to their own use. But then what could you expect of a lot of heathens like the Japanese? Nothing of the kind could happen in a Christian land. ASCENT OF FUSIYAMA. ASCENT OF FUSIYAMA. "Well, be quick about it, and then stand clear; we don't want any woman hurt." The key rattled at the keyhole and then dropped to the floor. "You did that by intention! Give me that key!" He tried the lock. "We've jammed it, corporal, but another good kick will fetch it; now!"--Bang!--crash!--open flew the door. "I see," said Allingham, slowly, "it is because you are, so to speak, temporarily incapacitated, that you are able to come down to the level of our world." Her hand had shot out grasping for something to steady herself on--the whole world spun around her. She had given her whole passionate, tempestuous soul to this man; she had never dreamt that she could fail to gain his love. She had never failed before, she had only required to hold up her hand. . . . Balmayne came with his burden, which he flung in and covered with a rug. He pulled at the lever, and the great machine started, and then dragged, as if some great weight was hanging on behind. The gruff voice suggested diplomacy, and promised immediate assistance. The caller had only to lie low and the desired aid should be on hand immediately. With a sense of pride and exultation Leona Lalage hung up the receiver and made her way to the dining-room. Professor Noyons took me all over the hospital, and if I should describe all I saw and heard there, that story alone would fill volumes. He took me, for example, to a boy of eight years old, whose shoulder was shattered by rifle-shots. His father and140 mother, four little brothers and a sister, had been murdered. The boy himself was saved because they thought that he was dead, whereas he was only unconscious. When I asked for his parents, brothers and sister, he put up his one hand and, counting by his little fingers, he mentioned their names. The baboo who has lost caste and been half-civilized in the Anglo-Indian colleges, is always the middleman between the Government and the poor; and he, barefaced and with no pretence of concealment, took twenty per cent. of the wages he was supposed to pay the labourers. And there were none but baboos to superintend the poorhouses and the famine-camps. It is said that during the previous famine some made fortunes of six to eight lacs of rupees (the lac is ￡10,000). But presently she stood up to go away, and her eyes caught the lowering, glazed ones of the Indian. Half involuntarily she made a motion of striking with a knife. Neither the doctor nor the steward caught it, but he did, and showed by a sudden start that he understood. Carthagena was strongly fortified, and the garrison was reinforced by the crews of a squadron lying there under Don Blas de Leon. If the place was to be assaulted, it should have been done at once; but Vernon lay perfectly inactive for five days, as if to allow the enemy to make all his preparations for defence. Notwithstanding this, the brave English erected a battery on shore, and played so effectually on the principal fort, that they soon made a breach in it, whilst the fleet fired into the harbour, thus dividing the attention of the enemy. In spite of their advantages, the Spaniards abandoned their forts and batteries, the English entered the breach, the vessels in the harbour were destroyed, and the passage cleared so that the fleet could sail in and support the army. There appeared nothing capable of preventing the conquest of the town but the cabals of the two commanders. Lord Cathcart had caught the endemic fever and died, and was succeeded by General Wentworth in command of the land forces. Wentworth had a great contempt of Vernon, and Vernon was by no means well disposed towards Wentworth. The fleet having entered the harbour, the land forces were all disembarked, and posted within a mile of Carthagena; but there the success stopped. Vernon had written home his dispatches to the Duke of Newcastle saying, "The wonderful success of this evening and night is so astounding, that we cannot but cry out, 'It is the Lord's doing, and it seems marvellous in our eyes!'" The Deacon was astonished, but in obedience to a gesture from the Provost, left the line, and came up. "Here," said the Chief Clerk, handing Shorty an official envelope, when the latter returned from having his chevrons sewed on. "Take this down to Col. Billings. Mind you do it in proper style. Don't get to sassing old Billings. Stick the envelope in your belt, walk into the office, take the position of a soldier, salute, and hand him the envelope, saying, 'With the compliments of the General,' salute again, about-face, and walk out." Another voice immediately spoke up in command: "Steady, men! Keep cool! Fire low, and give it to the blue-bellied scoundrels!" "That old-time religion." But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. He succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more with Mexico Bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the lower slopes of Boarzell. On the second day after Holgrave had become a bondman, he was summoned by an order from Calverley to go to labour for his lord. His heart swelled as he sullenly obeyed the mandate, and Margaret trembled as she saw him depart. She looked anxiously for the close of the day; and, when she saw her husband enter with some vegetables and grain that had been apportioned to him for his day's toil, her heart was glad. It was true that the gloom on his brow seemed increased, and that he threw down his load, and sat for several minutes without speaking,—but she cared not for his silence as she saw him return in safety. "I think," said Sir Robert Knowles, who saw that it was only under the influence of strong feeling that Holgrave could at present be a match for Oakley—"I think it would be better that this retainer accept the vintner's challenge; and should he worst him, then he and Holgrave can settle their quarrel, when a few days shall have given him more strength." This, despite of Holgrave's assurances that his strength was undiminished, was decided upon, and the galleyman and Oakley were directed to hold themselves in readiness to try the strength of their weapons on the morrow. They were then ordered to withdraw—Oakley and the galleyman to be lodged that night in the retainers' court, and Holgrave to tell over all he felt to the affectionate Margaret, who, for the present, at Isabella's request, was to occupy an apartment in the castle. HoME日本道一区二区免费一级毛片
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