Mystery

Quick Review: The first four BOSCH novels by Michael Connelly (Orion/Grand Central)

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A new convert gushes (though not in excess)…

LAPD detective Harry Bosch is a loner and a nighthawk. One Sunday he gets a call-out on his pager. A body has been found in a drainage tunnel off Mulholland Drive, Hollywood. At first sight, it looks like a routine drugs overdose case, but the one new puncture wound amid the scars of old tracks leaves Bosch unconvinced.

To make matters worse, Harry Bosch recognises the victim. Billy Meadows was a fellow ‘tunnel rat’ in Vietnam, running against the VC and the fear they all used to call the Black Echo. Bosch believes he let down Billy Meadows once before, so now he is determined to bring the killer to justice.

Above is the synopsis for the first Harry Bosch novel, first published in 19??. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to get around to reading Connelly’s bestselling series — I love the crime genre, novels set in Los Angeles, and pretty much everyone I know raves about the books. Last year, I read and enjoyed Crime Beat, the author’s book about writing and a collection of Connelly’s crime reporting, and also Mulholland Drive (a collection of three short stories). Not so long ago, I also read Connelly’s first novel starring his newest protagonist, Renée Ballard (The Late Show). After then binge-watching the superb Bosch television series, I decided it was well past time to read the author’s most famous series. And I am so very happy that I’ve started down this road. Continue reading →

Interview K.R. RICHARDSON

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Let’s start with an introduction: Who is K.R. Richardson?

A cynical, slightly obnoxious ex-journalist with a taste for good bourbon or rye, big lazy dogs, noir mysteries, quirky science fiction, and ridiculous mechanical objects. And cheese.

Your new novel, Blood Orbit, will be published by Pyr in May. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

Gritty cop/crime noir, wearing science fiction clothes in the tradition of Blade Runner and Altered Carbon. It’s the first in the Gattis File series — the publisher and I are discussing Gattis File Book 2 right now. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE GOOD SON by You-Jeong Jeong (Little, Brown)

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YouJeongJ-GoodSonUKNext week, Little, Brown are due to publish million-selling Korean author You-Jeong Jeong‘s The Good Son. The author has been described as “Korea’s Stephen King”, and A.J. Finn described The Good Son as perfect “For fans of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith”. Now, the UK will get to enjoy/be terrified by You-Jeong’s novel. Here’s the synopsis:

YOU WAKE UP COVERED IN BLOOD

THERE’S A BODY DOWNSTAIRS

YOUR MOTHER’S BODY

YOU DIDN’T DO IT. DID YOU?

HOW COULD YOU, YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN THE GOOD SON

When Yu-jin wakes up covered in blood, and finds the body of his mother downstairs, he decides to hide the evidence and pursue the killer himself.

Then young women start disappearing in his South Korean town. Who is he hunting? And why does the answer take him back to his brother and father who lost their lives many years ago.

The Good Son is inspired by a true story.

The Good Son is published in the UK by Little, Brown, on May 3rd; and in North America by Penguin, on June 5th.

Follow the Author: Goodreads

Upcoming: THIS BODY’S NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US by Edgar Cantero (Doubleday)

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CanteroE-ThisBodysNotBigEnoughForBothOfUsUSEdgar Cantero‘s latest novel, Meddling Kids has been widely praised. As a result, interest in his next work is understandably high. We do not have long to wait: This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us is due to be published by Doubleday in North America, on July 31st, 2018! And, as can perhaps be expected from the author of the aforementioned Meddling Kids, and also The Supernatural Enhancements, it sounds pretty interesting and original:

In a dingy office in Fisherman’s Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean. Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z., as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He’s pure misanthropic logic, she’s wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been locked in mortal battle since they were in utero… which is tricky because they, very literally, share one single body. That’s right. One body, two pilots. The mystery and absurdity of how Kimrean functions, and how they subvert every plotline, twist, explosion, and gunshot — and confuse every cop, neckless thug, cartel boss, ninja, and femme fatale — in the book is pure Cantero magic.

Someone is murdering the sons of the ruthless drug cartel boss known as the Lyon in the biggest baddest town in California — San Carnal. The notorious A.Z. Kimrean must go to the sin-soaked, palm-tree-lined streets of San Carnal, infiltrate the Lyon’s inner circle, and find out who is targeting his heirs, and while they are at it, rescue an undercover cop in too deep, deal with a plucky young stowaway, and stop a major gang war from engulfing California. They’ll face every plot device and break every rule Elmore Leonard wrote before they can crack the case, if they don’t kill each other (themselves) first.

I don’t know who will be publishing the novel in the UK, but Meddling Kids was published by Titan Books — so, maybe, they’ll be picking this one up as well.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: LEAVE NO TRACE by Mindy Mejia (Atria/Quercus)

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Mindy Mejia‘s debut novel, Everything You Want Me to Be (or, The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman in the UK) was critically acclaimed. There is, therefore, a lot of interest in the author’s next book, Leave No Trace. Due to be published by Atria in September 2018, it also looks really interesting. (I think I’ve mentioned it before on CR, but I have an unusual fondness for fiction/thrillers set in Minnesota. I ‘blame’ John Sandford…) Here’s the synopsis:

There is a place in Minnesota with hundreds of miles of glacial lakes and untouched forests called the Boundary Waters. Ten years ago a man and his son trekked into this wilderness and never returned.

Search teams found their campsite ravaged by what looked like a bear. They were presumed dead until a decade later… the son appeared. Discovered while ransacking an outfitter store, he was violent and uncommunicative and sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with their high-profile patient. No matter how she tries, however, he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last ten years of his life

But Maya, who was abandoned by her own mother, has secrets, too. And as she’s drawn closer to this enigmatic boy who is no longer a boy, she’ll risk everything to reunite him with his father who has disappeared from the known world.

Leave No Trace will be published in September by Atria in North America, and in September by Quercus in the UK.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Review: WARNING LIGHT by David Ricciardi (Berkley)

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RicciardiD-WarningLightUSA fast-paced, gripping debut thriller

No one knows what CIA desk jockey Zac Miller is capable of — including himself — when a routine surveillance job becomes a do-or-die mission in the Middle East.

When a commercial flight violates restricted airspace to make an emergency landing at a closed airport in Iran, the passengers are just happy to be alive and ready to transfer to a functional plane. All of them except one…

The American technology consultant in business class is not who he says he is. Zac Miller is a CIA analyst. And after an agent’s cover gets blown, Zac — though never trained to be a field operative — volunteers to take his place, to keep a surveillance mission from being scrubbed.

Zac thinks it will be easy to photograph the earthquake-ravaged airport that is located near a hidden top secret nuclear facility. But when everything that can go wrong does, he finds himself on the run from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and abandoned by his own teammates, who think he has gone rogue. Embarking on a harrowing journey through the mountains of Iran to the Persian Gulf and across Europe, Zac can only rely on himself. But even if he makes it out alive, the life he once had may be lost to him forever…

Ricciardi’s debut thriller is one hell of a fast-paced story. It’s a high-concept espionage and action tale, one in which an analyst is thrown into the field — a world of which he has no experience — and must overcome staggering odds to make it back home. This is a really entertaining, globe-trotting novel. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE MAN BETWEEN by Charles Cumming (Harper)

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CummingC-ManBetweenUKThe cover for Charles Cumming‘s upcoming new novel has been unveiled! The Man Between is due to be published in June by Harper (UK). I’m a big fan of Cumming’s novels, and have read every one of his novels since 2009’s Typhoon. If you’re a fan of spy fiction, then you really need to read Cumming’s books. Here’s the synopsis for The Man Between, one of my most-anticipated novels of the year:

He risked it all to become a spy. Now he must pay the price.

One simple task for British Intelligence takes him into a world of danger.

Successful novelist Kit Carradine has grown restless. So when British Intelligence invite him to enter the secret world of espionage, he willingly takes a leap into the unknown.

But the glamour of being a spy is soon tainted by fear and betrayal, as Carradine finds himself in Morocco on the trail of Lara Bartok a mysterious fugitive with links to international terrorism.

Bartok is a leading figure in Resurrection, a violent revolutionary movement whose brutal attacks on prominent right-wing politicians have spread hatred and violence throughout the West.

As the coils of a ruthless plot tighten around him, Carradine finds himself drawn to Lara. Caught between competing intelligence services who want her dead, he soon faces an awful choice: to abandon Lara to her fate or to risk everything trying to save her.

No news of an American publisher at the time of writing, but some of his previous novels have been published by St. Martin’s Press.

Also on CR: Guest Post on “A Colder War”; Reviews of Typhoon, The Trinity Six, A Foreign Country and A Colder War

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Quick Review: A MAP OF THE DARK by Karen Ellis (Mulholland)

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EllisK-1-AMapOfTheDarkThe first novel in the Searchers series

A girl missing

A woman, searching

A killer, planning…

If you’re lost she’ll find you

But who will save her?

Elsa Myers is smart, determined, and gifted with an extraordinary ability to find missing children. When vulnerable teenager Ruby disappears from Queens, she is put on the case.

But Elsa’s skills are rooted in her own troubled past. She is haunted by her mother’s murder, her father is dying, and her relationship with her sister is crumbling. As the case begins to look hopeless, it becomes more and more personal, tangling with the traumatic history she has worked so hard to hide.

As the darkness gathers around her, Elsa has to make a choice: can she save Ruby, if it means losing herself?

A Map of the Dark is the first in an interesting new series from Karen Ellis that introduces us to Elsa Myers, an FBI agent struggling with her own inner demons. While this is a novel far more about the protagonist than it is the crime she and her colleagues are investigating, I enjoyed the novel, and I think the series has promise. Continue reading →

Upcoming: MISSING PERSON by Sarah Lotz (Mulholland/Hodder)

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LotsS-MissingPersonUSA new novel by Sarah Lotz! Unfortunately, it’s still pretty far away: Missing Person is due out in April 2019… Nevertheless, I spotted it in the Mulholland Books catalogue, and decided to feature it on the site. It is also due out in the UK, to be published by Hodder in March 2019.

Reclusive Irish bookseller Shaun Ryan has always believed that his older brother, Teddy, died in a car accident. It’s only on his mother’s deathbed that he learns the truth: Teddy, who was gay, fled the Catholic, deeply conservative County Wicklow for New York decades earlier. Shaun finds no sign of him in New York or anywhere else–until he comes across the unsolved murder of a John Doe whose description matches Teddy’s.

Desperate for information, Shaun tracks down Chris Guzman, a woman who runs a website dedicated to matching missing persons cases with unidentified bodies. Through Chris’s site, a group of online cold case fanatics connect Teddy with the notorious “Boy in the Dress” murder, believed to be one of many committed by a serial killer targeting gay men.

But who are these cold case fanatics, and how do they know so much about a case that left the police and the FBI stumped? With investigators, amateurs, and one sadistic killer on a collision course, Missing Person is Sarah Lotz at her most thrilling and terrifying.

Sarah Lotz is the author of a number of superb novels, including The Three (on sale in the UK at the time of writing), Day Four and The White Road. Lotz’s novels are published in the UK by Hodder.

Also on CR: Interview with Sarah Lotz (2014); Reviews of The Three and Day Four

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

Excerpt: DAYFALL by Michael David Ares (Tor)

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AresMD-DayfallToday, we have an excerpt from Michael David Ares‘s new novel, Dayfall. Published by Tor Books, here’s the synopsis…

FEAR THE DAY

In the near future, patches of the northern hemisphere have been shrouded in years of darkness from a nuclear winter, and the water level has risen in the North Atlantic. The island of Manhattan has lost its outer edges to flooding and is now ringed by a large seawall.

The darkness and isolation have allowed crime and sin to thrive in the never-ending shadows of the once great city, and when the sun finally begins to reappear, everything gets worse. A serial killer cuts a bloody swath across the city during the initial periods of daylight, and a violent panic sweeps through crowds on the streets. The Manhattan police, riddled with corruption and apathy, are at a loss.

That’s when the Mayor recruits Jon Phillips, a small-town Pennsylvania cop who had just single-handedly stopped a high-profile serial killer in his own area, and flies him into the insanity of this new New York City. The young detective is partnered with a shady older cop and begins to investigate the crimes amidst the vagaries of a twenty-four hour nightlife he has never experienced before. Soon realizing that he was chosen for reasons other than what he was told, Jon is left with no one to trust and forced to go on the run in the dark streets, and below them in the maze of the underground. Against all odds he still hopes that he can save his own life, the woman of his dreams, and maybe even the whole city before the arrival of the mysterious and dreaded event that has come to be known as… DAYFALL.

Read on for the excerpt…

Continue reading →