MURDER COMES BY MAIL, by A. H. Gabhart

When Deputy Michael Keane takes a bus full of ladies to see a play in a nearby town, they encounter a suicidal man on a back country bridge. Michael stops the bus and is successful in pulling the man away from the edge and thus saving his life. Unfortunately, Michael's act of mercy results in far more attention than he's comfortable with. He's hailed as a hero, even to the point of news media from other areas flooding into Hidden Springs to interview him.
    Just as the attention begins to wane, photos of a dead girl arrive in the mail. The message attached leads Michael to believe that the man he saved is the murderer. As things spiral out of control in Hidden Springs, Michael is convinced that he is dealing with a madman.
    I could hardly put the book down--it's that good. With Murder Comes by Mail, A. H. Gabhart lifts the "cozy mystery" genre to new heights. Twists and some gruesome surprises fill the pages.
    Murder Comes by Mail builds on the characters introduced in Murder at the Courthouse, although it's not necessary to have read the first book in the Hidden Springs series to be fully absorbed in this one. If you love mysteries, you'll be glued to your chair by Murder Comes by Mail. I highly recommend this book!
My thanks to the author and Revell for providing my review copy.

Through Waters Deep, by Sarah Sundin

       Self-effacing Mary Stirling's job in the Boston Navy Yard keeps her out of the spotlight, which is just what she wants. At the launching of a new ship, she encounters naval officer Jim Avery--a childhood friend. The two of them begin to spend time together, although Mary knows Jim's heart belongs to her best friend.
    When signs of sabotage appear on the ship to which Jim is assigned, Mary becomes interested in solving the crimes. She and Jim grow closer as they share suspicions, with Mary ever mindful that Jim is only interested in learning the saboteur's identity.
    Through Waters Deep drew me in on two levels. The novel is set during the months leading up to World War II, and the historical background fascinated me. I hadn't been aware of the deep divisions between Interventionists and Isolationists prior to Pearl Harbor. On a story-telling level, Through Waters Deep explores the lives of two people who are each overcoming childhood guilt as they strive become the person they were meant to be.
    As with her previous books, Sarah Sundin's wartime scenes are breathtaking. I love the authenticity she brings to the story. Oh, and Jim and Mary? You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens. You won't be disappointed.

    My thanks to the author and Revell for my review copy.

WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS, Lynette Eason

            Alexia Allen is on enforced leave from her firefighter job in Washington when she receives a phone call from a high school friend inviting her to their tenth reunion. Impulsively, she decides to return to the town she fled on the day after graduation ten years ago.

            Her homecoming starts off with an almost-literal bang when she discovers a murdered classmate in her mother’s basement. And the action is just beginning. As Alexia battles secrets from her past, she finds she’s become a target.

            The detective assigned to investigate the murder makes her heart flutter when she recognizes him as someone she had a crush on when she was in school. But by his reaction to her, she knows he suspects her of the crime.

            When the Smoke Clears is filled with plot twists. I couldn’t stop myself from reading on (and on) when I should have been sleeping. If you enjoy mystery/suspense with a touch of romance, you’ll love When the Smoke Clears.

            My thanks to the author and Revell for providing a copy for review purposes.

HUNTER'S MOON, by Don Hoesel

Hunter's Moon is a near-perfect story of a family hiding a dark past. Hoesel's hero, CJ Baxter, is a bestselling novelist, so as an author I especially enjoyed reading this book. CJ's ups and downs with his agent, critics, and sales numbers added an extra dimension to an already enjoyable plot.

The story opens with CJ leaving his home in Tennessee to travel to New York state to visit his dying grandfather. He leaves behind a fractured marriage and a lawsuit brought against him by a critic he assaulted. Once he reaches the family mansion overlooking his hometown, his return after seventeen years is met with barely veiled hostility.

CJ knows something that his brother, Graham, and their father have kept hidden since CJ was a boy. Graham is running for the Senate and isn't eager to have the family black sheep dig into family secrets. As the plot unfolds, we see how far the Baxter clan will go to hide those secrets.

In Hunter's Moon, Hoesel has given us a look at a believable protagonist—a man with flaws, doubts, and the courage to face his past. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George

If you've perused the Bookshelf tab on my website, you know I'm an Elizabeth George fan. Recently I finished her latest mystery, Careless in Red. The story is a little different than some of her earlier novels, in that all the action takes place along the Cornwall coast rather than in London.

The opening line is a grabber: "He found the body on the forty-third day of his walk." He is Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley, who turned in his New Scotland Yard identification following events in a previous novel, With No One as Witness.

Happily for Lynley fans (I'm one of them), he's back in this book, having been dragged reluctantly into a murder investigation. George involves the lives of a dozen or so characters in a small village in Cornwall where everyone’s life is an open book (except the murderer’s). By doing so, Careless in Red becomes a novel in which a murder occurs, rather than a straightforward murder mystery. I loved how George took me into the character’s lives, worried me as to the outcomes, then in a satisfactory fashion wrapped up the secondary stories. The approach was a new one for her, at least concerning the number of sub-plots.

Careless in Red is general market fiction, so there is a bit of colorful language and some sexual situations. With her usual skill, George had me guessing until the final moments of the story. This isn’t a “stay up all night” book, because at 721 words, I missed several night’s sleep, not just one. I loved the story, but I have to confess prejudice. I read everything she writes.

The Familiar Stranger, by Christina Berry

The Familiar Stranger, Berry's debut novel, opens with a scene between a couple whose marriage is obviously in trouble. Craig goes his way, Denise goes hers. Then she receives a phone call that changes the stakes from the everyday to stunning suspense.

Craig has been in a devastating accident, and when he wakes from a drug-induced coma he no longer remembers Denise or their life together. Berry ramps up the story from a domestic plot to page-turning suspense as one revelation about Craig’s past follows another. Betrayals, lies, and false memories all play into the mystery of their marriage.

Told from two points of view, we see Denise reel as she grapples with discoveries from Craig’s secret life. At the same time we share Craig’s bewilderment at finding himself part of a family he doesn't remember, and being accused of things he has no recollection of doing.

The Familiar Stranger moves quickly, and kept me riveted to the story when I should have turned off the light and gone to sleep. Berry does a masterful job of bringing all the plot points together at the satisfying conclusion.

I recommend The Familiar Stranger, and look forward to Berry’s next novel. Inspirational fiction has a new star.

Please stop by again on October 9. I'll be posting an interview with Christina.

Just One Look, by Harlan Coben

What can I say about a book by Harlan Coben? Exciting, page turning? Yes, but after reading one or two of his novels I find they're all cut from the same mold. It's like going to McDonald's for a meal. You know what you're going to get, so that’s why you go there.

Same with Just One Look. Having read a couple of other of Coben’s books, I knew this would follow a pattern. That’s why I picked it up—when I’m in the mood for a fun, escapist read, there’s no one like Coben to provide it for me.

The plot line of Just One Look concerns Grace Lawson, who discovers a mysterious photograph mixed in with her order from Photomat. (Remember film developing? This story has a 2004 copyright date.) The picture is of a group of young people, and one of them looks like her husband. Mystified, she shows him the photo, and that evening he disappears.

The fast-moving story follows Grace’s efforts to find him. The police think he simply left, as husbands sometimes do, and don’t take her concerns seriously. There are multiple plot twists, and one very creepy bad guy. Coben twisted this plot like the gears of a clock—it was impossible for me to put it all together until the last cog fell into place at the end of the book.

Just One Look is a great airplane read—you won’t notice how long you’re stuck in that uncomfortable little seat because you’ll be so busy racing through the story.

Enjoy!

Rose House, by Tina Ann Forkner

Tina Ann Forkner's second novel, Rose House, is an engrossing and worthy successor to her outstanding first book, Ruby Among Us. In Rose House, Forkner revisits La Rosaleda, a fictional town set in the beautiful Sonoma Valley of California.

I'd call the plot of Rose House "a mystery wrapped in an enigma," to paraphrase Winston Churchill. The main character, Lillian Diamon, is mourning the loss of her family when she finds herself drawn to the fabled Rose House in La Rosaleda. Forkner starts the pages turning right away, with a mysterious photographer who is spying on Lillian. From there the story spins out question after question. We walk in Lillian's shoes as she lives through her grief and confusion--each new revelation deepening the mystery of what happened to her family.

As always, Forkner evokes emotion with her skillful phrasing. One line I particularly loved has Lillian reflecting, "My house is worse than an empty shell. It is full and overflowing with what is missing."

The story is filled with a sense of menace. We share Lillian's doubts about whom she can trust. The reader is drawn further into Rose House to answer questions raised about each of the fully-drawn characters that Forkner introduces. As the plot lines converge, the book sweeps to a heart-stopping conclusion.

The characters became real to me--I'm still thinking about them. I loved the way this novel resolved. I had tears in my eyes when I read the ending.

I recommend Rose House!

Miss Fortune and Miss Match by Sara Mills

Welcome to Sara Mills' blog tour. This interview took place last week, the day before Sara's husband died of a heart attack on Tuesday. He was young -- 40 -- and I am grieved for Sara and her children. If you've considered buying one of these books, please follow the link at the end of this post to buy one or both of them.

Here's the interview with Sara, as conducted by Cara Putman:

Cara: Miss Fortune and Miss Match are delightful books set in NYC in 1947. Tell us how you got the idea for Allie and these books.

I got the idea for Miss Fortune in the middle of the night, when all good ideas come to me:
One sleepless night I was watching The Maltese Falcon and I started to wonder how different the story would be if Sam Spade had been a woman. She'd never have fallen for Miss Wunderly's charms and lies. She'd have been smart and tough and she would have solved the case in half the time it took Sam because she wouldn't spend all of her time smoking cigarettes and calling her secretary Precious.
The thought of a hard-boiled female detective got my mind whirling.
I paused the movie and sat in my darkened living room thinking about how much fun a female Sam Spade could be. Intrigued but not yet ready to dash to my computer, I changed disks and put on Casablanca (my all time favorite movie ever). The sweeping love story, a tale full of hard choices and sacrifice was what finally made the whole idea click in my mind. If I could just combine the P.I. detective story of the Maltese Falcon with the love story from Casablanca, and make Sam Spade more of a Samantha, I could have the best of all worlds.

Cara: These books are so good, I wish I'd written them. How did you set the stage to capture that gritty PI feel without being dark?

I find that a lot of PI stories are gritty and dark, focusing on the worst of the humanity, and while I wanted the Allie Fortune mysteries to be exciting and tension-filled I didn’t want them to be stark and hopeless.
One of the things I tried to do to counteract the darkness was to give Allie a multi-layered life. She has cases, relationships, friends and family, all of which I hope combine to make the stories textured, rich and full of life.

Cara: Allie is a character I'd love to have coffee with. What did she teach you while you wrote these books?

Allie was a great character to write. One of the things I learned from her was that human relationships (man/woman, mother/daughter, friends) are complicated and full of unspoken rules and expectations. Allie is a rule-breaker at heart and it complicates her life on a regular basis. One of the storylines I loved most is Allie’s relationship with her mother and how it grows and changes and how it’s shaped her.
Another dimension of Allie’s character that really taught me a lot was her willingness to do whatever was needed to help those she loves. There is no price on that kind of friendship and it’s a characteristic I’d like to see more of in myself. Okay I admit it, I’ve got a bit of a friend-crush on Allie. LOL.

Cara: One last question: If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would that be and who would you take with you?

If I could go anywhere right now I’d head to Monterey, California (I’m writing a book set there right now) and I’d plant myself on the beach with a notebook, writing my story as the waves crashed. Sounds like my idea of heaven on earth. There’s something about the wind-shaped Cypress trees and the crash of the surf in Monterey that calls to me. I don’t know why, it just is.

Miss Fortune and Miss Match are available through www.christianbook.com.

Miss Fortune, Allie Fortune Mystery Series #1 By Sara Mills / Moody Publishers In 1947 Allie Fortune is the only female private investigator in New York City, but she's kept awake at night by a mystery of her own: her fianci disappeared in the war and no one knows if he's still alive. Until Allie finds out, she will have no peace. When there's a knock on her office door at four in the morning, Allie suspects trouble as usual, and Mary Gordon is no exception. Mary claims someone is following her, that her apartment has been ransacked, and that she's been shot at, but she has no idea why any of this is happening. Allie takes the case, and in the process discovers an international mystery that puts her own life in danger. Meanwhile, the FBI is working the case as well, and she is partnered up with an attractive, single agent who would be perfect for her under other circumstances-if only she knew whether her fianci was still alive.

Miss Match, Allie Fortune Mystery Series #2 By Sara Mills / Moody Publishers FBI agent Jack O'Connor receives a letter from Maggie, a woman he used to love, saying she's in trouble in Berlin. The FBI refuses to get involved, so Jack asks Allie Fortune to help him investigate. Allie and Jack pose as a missionary couple who want to bring orphans back to the United States. A child finds important documents that everyone in the city - Soviets and allies alike - want for themselves. Maggie refuses to tell Jack what the documents are, saying if things go wrong, they are better off not knowing. Through the course of the search, Allie's past is brought back to her, half a world away from home.

According to Their Deeds by Paul Robertson

I bought this book because the back cover blurb said that the protagonist, Charles Beale, owns a rare books shop. Any story about a bookstore owner must be good, right?
According To Their Deeds is beyond good—it is so much fun to read that I hated to see the story conclude.
If you, like me, enjoy playing with words, According To Their Deeds is for you. My compliments to Robertson’s editors at Bethany House for giving him the latitude to fill the story with puns, “swifties” (see page 69), and clever riffs on classic books. I can’t think of a time I simply enjoyed each page of a story for the subtle humor it contained.
And yet, don’t let me deceive you. According To Their Deeds is a complex mystery that that has one of the best opening scenes I’ve read in years. The plot had me guessing until the very end, but what kept me reading page after page was the cleverness of the writing. I came to look forward to the moments when Charles Beale would enter the shop and ask Alice, the clerk, if they’d sold anything. Invariably, she’d name a title and Charles would have an answering pun relating to the book’s content. As I said, I was sorry when the book reached it’s exciting conclusion, because I knew I’d miss the repartee that filled the chapters.
I heartily recommend According To Their Deeds, both as a mystery and just for fun. I plan to locate the rest of Robertson’s books and read them, too.

Rhapsody in Red

Donn Taylor’s Rhapsody in Red doesn’t exactly fit my “debut novel” theme, but it’s close, in that it is author Taylor’s first novel for a prominent publisher. Rhapsody in Red is a mystery filled with suspense and laced with humor. The protagonist, Preston Barclay, is a history professor at a small college that has morphed from a Christian institution to a secular one in order to draw more students. “Press” Barclay’s wry comments on college faculty infighting will bring a smile to the reader’s lips even as they’re racing through the story.

Rhapsody in Red has all the outer accouterments to cause browsers to select this novel from among others on the shelf. The cover is bright red, with a black stiletto (the shoe, not the dagger) above the title. Back cover copy reads, “That Wednesday, two weeks before Thanksgiving, was a bad day to find a corpse on campus.” But what really drew me in was the introduction of the secondary character, Mara Thorn, as the Wiccan head of the department of religious studies. That addition gives the story an additional twist. Press and Mara have the misfortune to discover the murdered body of a dead colleague, and the further misfortune of being the primary suspects of the crime.

The story takes off at a run from that point, and doesn’t slow down until the surprising conclusion. Every time I told myself I’d read to the end of a chapter, then put the book down, I found myself saying, “Well, one more chapter, then I’ll stop.” Donn Taylor added several dimensions to this novel, which in my opinion, raise it above the average mystery. His protagonist, Press Barclay, suffers from musical hallucinations, so many scenes are enlivened by Barclay’s description of the melodies that are haunting his mind. Taylor cleverly sets the mood for much of the action in Rhapsody in Red by describing the instruments playing in Press’s head. Further, Taylor’s droll sense of humor, especially when directed at the faculty of the university where his protagonist is employed, will cause the reader to snicker even while his heart pounds with the suspense that Taylor so adroitly weaves into each chapter.

Rhapsody in Red rates high on my recommended list. I hope Taylor is hard at work on a sequel!