In Like a Lion...Out Like a Lion

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

This stand-alone by the award winning author of the Ruth Galloway series is a tribute to Gothic literature and doesn’t miss any tropes along the way.  Clare Cassidy is a secondary school English teacher in West Sussex, and a single mom to teenaged Georgie.  She is writing a biography of writer R.M. Holland who once lived in the building were her school Talgarth High, is currently housed.  The school is as gothic a setting as one could hope for and it is said that Holland’s wife fell down the stairs to her death and still haunts the schools, and that when her ghost appears, a death will follow.  No one has claimed to see the ghost, but then Clare’s colleague and close friend is murdered, a note quoting Holland’s most famous short story “The Stranger” left near the body.  As police investigate, they are very interested in Clare, especially when Clare shows them that she has just found a line in her diary that she did not write, written in the same hand as the note near the body.  The story, told from three points of view: Clare’s, her daughter Georgie’s, and the Sikh policewoman investigating the case, unravels slowly, the haunted house, the specter of Halloween, and Gothic literature as an inspiration for a murder, until a rather surprising conclusion, and an almost light-hearted epilogue.  

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner

In 1943, German-American Elise Sontag’s father is arrested as a threat to America even though he and his wife have been in America almost two decades.  Eventually, he and his family are reunited and relocated to Crystal City, an internment camp in Texas.  There, 14-year-old Elise meets Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teenager whose family has also been relocated.  The girls promise each other they will live in Manhattan after the war, but after the Sontags are repatriated to Germany and the Inoues to Japan, the girls lose touch.  Now in her eighty’s, Elisa, who married and returned to the US, seeks out Mariko who she learns is dying in California.  Elise decides to make one last trip to see her dear friend and learn about her life since the two parted nearly seventy years ago.  Meissner’s keen attention to historical details allows for a feeling of immediacy during the later years of World War II, including the hatreds and prejudice that lingered long afterwards.  Told almost exclusively from Elise’s point of view, a compelling story to be sure, more of Mariko’s struggles would have rounded out this lovely story of friendship lost and found even more.  A www.libraryreads.org pick for March.

The Last Woman in the Forest by Diane Les Becquets

Marian Engstrom joins a conservation group in Alberta tracking caribou, a job she loves: working outdoors in the wilderness with dogs.  She becomes involved with Tate, one of the team leaders and is devastated when she learns of his death, but also a bit uneasy as during their relationship there were things Tate said that didn’t quite add up to Marian, including his claim that he found the body of one of the Stillwater Creek victims.  Marian reaches out to Nick Shepard, the profiler who worked on the cases and all too soon she is drawn into the investigation, all the while feeling someone is watching her.  The stark detailed beauty of the wilderness mirrors the detachment of many of the characters who often bond better with the animals than each other.  A www.libraryreads.org pick for March.

Call Me Evie by J. P. Pomare

Seventeen-year-old Kate Bennet doesn’t’ know why she is locked in a New Zealand beach cabin far from her home in Melbourne; she doesn’t know the man who is keeping her, no why he says he is her uncle Jim, and why he calls her Evie.  She just knows she did something very wrong in Melbourne and that he says he is hiding her to project her.  As snippets of her memory return, she wonders if she can really trust Jim and if he is really hiding her or holding her hostage.  Kate becomes more desperate as she tries to work out what she did, why she is here, and who she can trust.  This addictive psychological suspense hits all the right notes, and is put together well save for a final nudge that is needed to work up to the big reveal.

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

Millicent and her husband have found a way to keep their marriage alive and interesting after fifteen years: they murder young women.  One of them changes the rules and suspicion falls on a possible serial killer from the past, the investigation into several unsolved murders of young women rackets up, revealing more secrets about the couple than either thought they knew.  Can this marriage be saved?  This twisted dark novel will have readers guessing until the very end.   The Number One www.libraryreads.org pick for March.

This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite

Blogger and TED speaker Applewhite quietly, but firmly, rails against ageism, in this entertaining and informative book, a collective of her wisdom and beliefs.  Overall, people are living longer, working longer, playing longer, and want to remain independent as long as possible.  She addresses stereotypes,  and affirms that it’s okay to age and grow old, offering broad advice on how to age gracefully, and well. 

The Good Detective by John McMahon

Detective P.T. Marsh was going far in the police department in Mason Falls, Georgia before a car accident killed his wife and young son the year before.  No he drinks heavily and doesn’t always make good choices.  Agreeing to rough up the abusive boyfriend of a stripper becomes one of those bad choices when the man, with Neo-Nazi tattoos, is found dead the next morning, P.T.’s fingerprints all over the scene.  The discovery of a fifteen-year old black teenager, partially burned with a rope around his neck, in a burned out field sends P.T. and his partner Remy off on a trail of hate that may lead back to the dead man, but the solution seems too pat to P.T. and he begins to did further into things, finding ties to prominent local business men and politicians, and stretching back as far as the Civil War.  A good sense of place, a well-plotted investigation, and a flawed main character make his debut one to watch.

In the Blink of an Eye by Jesse Blackadder

Beginning to settle in after moving from Tasmania to mainland Australia, the unthinkable happens to the Brennan family and threatens to tear them apart.  One morning, Finn sets to his work as an artist in his studio in the backyard, teenage son Jarrah heads off to school, while Finn’s wife Bridget gets ready to leave for her job as a marine biologist, a routine that is a little different than usual.  Bridget takes her eyes off of their two-year-old son Toby for a few minutes and he vanishes; he is found floating in the pool, drowned.  What follows, is the unfolding of each family member’s roll in Toby’s life and death, their guilt, and their grief.  The narrative is interestingly and effectively told from the viewpoints of each family member: Finn’s in the third person, giving the most distance from the story; Jarrah’s in the first person, giving a sense of loss and immediacy, and Bridget’s as if she is musing over the events, almost in a trance-like state.  With the police involved and an arrest made, suspicions, anger, and guilt build even more, providing an additional layer of tension to this heart-breaking plot, beautifully rendered.

The Gardener of Eden by David Downie

James Adams, recently widowed, retired judge, returns to the now dying timber town of Carverville, California, a town he left almost forty-years ago, both he and the town a little worse for the wear.  He finds himself helping the chatting owner of Eden Seaside Resort Cottages, Beverley, doing gardening and yardwork with Taz, a teenager whose brilliance and talents may go unused unless he is able to get out of the small town.  When the two make a terrible discovery, a feral hog trap, James knows they have unleashed a past he hoped not to face again, but one he must, all the same, in his hometown which has become a dystopian police state.  Literate, with many Sherlockian references, and heavy handed in places, this novel, an homage to the beauty of the rural wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.   

Murder Once Removed by S. C. Perkins

Austin, Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster has been hired by billionaire Gus Halloran to do his family tree; Gus has just announced that Texas senator Caleb Applewhite murdered Seth Halloran…in 1849.  Lucy isn’t so sure: she has a photo that shows another man may be guilty.  As Lucy digs into the Halloran family history she stirs up a lot of trouble, brings in the FBI, and gets involved in a modern day murder in this debut mystery that won the 2017 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery contest.  Armchair sleuths and amateur genealogists should be prepared to be charmed.

Too Much is Not Enough by Andrew Rannells

This deceptively light and breezy memoir chronicles Andrew Rannells’s (The Book of Mormon) journey to New York City from Omaha.  Andrew always loved live stage, and knew he was gay (though he didn’t come out to his family until three days before he left for Marymount College in Manhattan).  In 1997 he finally has his chance to realize his dreams: but arriving in New York, things are a little different than he expects, but he is anxious to try everything, and try most things he does.  He sets his sights on Broadway, and never waivers until he finds himself standing among the cast of Hairspray ready to make his debut.  Rannells is painfully honest, never forgets his family or where he came from, and driven to succeed in this honest, touching, humorous look at one man achieving his dreams and what he went through to do so.

The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz

Lindsey is living and working as a fact checker for a magazine in New York City and feels as if she has her life together.  Gone are her hipster days of 2009, hanging with friends in Calhoun Lofts in pre-gentrified Bushwick, Brooklyn, but she’s okay with that and has tried to put that behind her.  When her friend Sarah reaches out to her, the two discuss the evening in August 2009 when their friend Edie committed suicide.  The two women have different recollections of the events of that night and Lindsey begins to question whether or not Edie killed herself or if she was murdered.  Lindsey, who has had drunken blackouts, some ending with violence, more than once, reaches out to the other friends she Sarah, and Edie hung out with, reconstructs e-mails, and finds the files on her video camera, each step bringing her closer to the truth of what happened that night, and the truth may be closer to her than she can imagine.  Tightly plotted with gritty writing at times, this debut thriller captures the atmosphere of young adults ready to take on the world.  

Baby of the Family by Maura Roosevelt

When the patriarch of the Whitby family dies, he leaves behind an empire including hotels, houses in several cities. Four times married, Roger has nine children, including the son of his fourth wife he adopted, the son to whom he leaves his entire fortune: except no one can find Nick.  Nick is running underground after having participated in an act of terrorism against a corporation in Maine, his co-participants having been arrested.  Half-sisters Shelley and Brooke are concerned that they will lose the Roger owned homes they are living in as each deals with her own set of problems:  Shelley has dropped out of college, her mother is in and out of mental hospitals, and is working as an assistant to a blind author, a situation that becomes uncomfortable on several levels.  Brooke, an emergency room nurse in Boston, has recently become pregnant by her fiancé, but would rather be with her girlfriend Allie.  These three half-and step-siblings form an uneasy alliance as they sort out their lives in this assured debut from the from the great-granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

While You Sleep by Stephanie Merritt

American painter Zoe Adams comes to the McBride house on a remote Scottish Island, seeking refuge, and perhaps forgiveness.  There is a pall of unrest over the house, and while the locals are friendly enough, Zoe experiences a good deal of unease and even a ghost or two.  A local historian shares the tragedies that surround the house with Zoe, heightening her alertness.  This sexy, suspenseful, gothic thriller hits all the right notes with atmosphere.

Redemption Point by Candice Fox

Former detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting a raping young Claire Bingley; though he was released from prison and not convicted, his life has never been the same: he is hiding out on the edge of a swamp in Australia, away from his wife and young daughter, at the mercy of vigilantes who still think he’s guilty, and now the target of Claire’s father who still blames Ted for his daughter’s attack.  Ted has joined forces with Amanda Pharrell, an unusual private detective with her own demons and idiosyncrasies, after doing time for murder (told in Crimson Lake) to try and find the real attacker.  Hired by the father of one of two bartenders who was murdered at closing at the nearby Barking Frog Inn, the pair doesn’t exactly join forces with Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney, the lead detective on the case, though since it’s her first murder investigation, Amanda feels Pip can use a little help with her case and dives right in.  Though the parallel investigations never cross, both are well laid out with surprises and twists and turns, and though there may never be total redemption for Ted nor Amanda, each will come away with a stronger sense that life may be more than it has been for each.

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

Hen and her husband Lloyd are settling nicely into a suburb of Boston: Hen, an illustrator, has found a studio nearby from which she can work and sell her art, and can live a peaceful and stable life, her bipolar disorder under control.  Until the night she and Lloyd have dinner at the neighbor’s house: Hen spots a fencing trophy in the office of the husband, Matthew.  She recognizes the trophy as belonging to a young man who was killed nearly two years ago, a murder that remains unsolved, but one that has been an obsession of Hen’s since.  When Hen realizes that Matthew teaches at the school Dustin Miller attended, her suspicions grown and becomes more obsessed and begins to stalk Matthew.  When he learns she has been stalking him, she wonders if she’ll live to tell police what she suspects.  A tightly written novel where madness and madness meet with no way out for anyone.

House on Fire by Bonnie Kistler

This debut by a former trial lawyer hits all the right notes for fans of suspenseful family dramas, with moral questions that have no good answers.  Leigh Huyett, a divorce attorney, and her second husband Pete Conley have successfully blended their families, Leigh’s twin sons and her 14-year-old daughter Chrissy with Pete’s son Kip, a high school senior.  On the weekend of the couple’s anniversary, they leave Pete and Chrissy home alone, and receive news every family dreads: there was a car accident, Kip was arrested for drunk driving, but both children seem relatively unharmed.  Twelve hours later, Chrissy is dead, Kip is arrested for vehicular man slaughter, and the family is thrown into emotional turmoil.  Kip always had an edge about him, but was a star student and athlete, looking forward to a bright future, beginning with college in a few months.  Even with the loss of her daughter, Leigh throws her full support behind Kip, until Kip changes his story saying Chrissy was driving.  Leigh now feels her loyalties divided, the strain is on their marriage, but as she begins to work some new cases of her own, she is able to see things in a different light, and begins to wonder if Kip isn’t telling the truth.  This tightly plotted drama has many twists and turns, moral questions, and unanswered questions, is recommended for book groups, and fans of authors such as Jodi Picoult.

Run Away by Harlan Coben

Simon Greene’s daughter is a drug addict who has run away and doesn’t want to be found.  Her father, however, wants her found: when he sees her playing guitar in Strawberry Fields in Central Park he begs her to come home, only to scare her off, setting off a chase that will take Simon and his wife into a dangerous world of drugs, a world more dangerous than they could ever have imagined.  When Simon is approached by Elena, a private investigator from Chicago who is looking for a young man, he can’t imagine there is any connection, but the deeper he delves into the world in which his daughter is now living, the more evil he faces; the more Simon learns about why Paige has run away the more he questions everything he knew.  Another twisty, stand-alone thriller from the best-selling author.

Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward

Maddie, who was horribly disfigured on a camping trip several years before, is afraid she’s losing her mind: she Googles “should I see a therapist” and decides she should.  Cami J has Maddie journaling and her many fears come out: when Charlie (her son) cries; when Ian (her husband) drinks in the basement, and when Ian gets angry, along with several other unlikely fears.  All this from a woman who, in her younger years, lived in Bulgaria, teaching English on a Fulbright Scholarship, and then writing a guide book, traveling frequently to Macedonia where her friend Jo is an aid worker, and where she meets Ian, and begins their tumultuous relationship.  Years later, Ian and Maddie are married, living in rural Kansas with their young son Charlie, Ian still working overseas, Maddie and Jo estranged over Maddie’s decision to marry Ian, all culminating in a night of killing and an aftermath that is much more twisted than ever imagined in this startling, sophisticated debut.  A www.libraryreads.org pick for March.

Save Me from Dangerous Men S.A. Lelchuk

Nikki Griffin, a 33-year-old bookstore owner, has a second career: a vigilante PI.  At thirty-three, Nikki is very much a loner: all she needs are her books and her motorcycle.  She has no cell phone and tries to look after her junkie brother who lives nearby in Oakland.  Nikki’s typical clients are abused, cheated on women whose husband’s need a lesson in how to leave their female partners alone.  She is a little startled when she is approached by the CEO of Care4, a Silicon Valley start-up that manufactures baby monitors, to investigate Karen Li, an employee who may be trading the company’s secrets.  Nikki agrees, and easily tails Karen: but what she finds is an entirely different story than Gregg Gunn told her.  Nikki’s investigation takes a dangerous turn, and puts her life and her brother’s at risk.  This tightly wound protagonist with a hidden back story, revealed slowly and partially during court-ordered weekly therapy sessions, makes this thriller, with an equally tightly woven plot, a stellar debut; readers will be eager to see more of Nikki and the women she protects.