Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 14

Victim 2117, Jussi Adler Olsen

Department Q has a fan. Alexander keeps calling, telling them when he reaches 2117 kills he’s going on a real life killing spree. Q is short handed, Mona has just dropped a bombshell on Carl. Assad has taken some personal time chasing a journalist, and Rose, well Rose might just save everybody.

We’ve always known that there’s much more to Assad than mint tea and a mop and bucket but his backstory exceeds every expectation!

Golden Key, Marian Womack

1901: Queen Victoria is dead and London is in the grip of psychic mayhem. Nightly seances call forth the spirits and mediums are celebrated and investigated in equal measure. One of these mediums, Helena Walton-Cisneros, has been enlisted by Lady Matthews to solve the decades old disappearance of her three stepdaughters on the bleak Norfolk Fens.
Before leaving London Helena meets young Samuel Moncrieff, who is mourning his lost love and having terrible nightmares about the same desolate area Helena is travelling to. An area of dark magic, old superstitions, devil men and vanishing children. But sometimes those children come back…

Things in Jars, Jess Kidd

In Jess’s third book she introduces us to the formidable Bridie Divine, a flame haired female investigator in nineteenth century London who has been hired to recover the kidnapped daughter of a Baronet. Young Christabel Berwick has strange powers, she can control the tides and see into the mind and pick out thoughts the way a skilled angler lands a trout.
Bridie is assisted by housekeeper Cora - rescued from the circus, Ruby, a deceased boxer with spectacular tattoos and Inspector Rose of Scotland Yard.
The rivers of London are rising from their burial grounds, threatening to turn London into a suburb of Atlantis. To find Christabel Bridie has to revisit her past; one she would prefer stay buried but with a child’s life at stake she will not fail, again.

The Truants, Kate Weinberg

There was only reason Jess wanted to study at the looming concrete fortress that is the University of East Anglia, Dr Lorna Clay. Lorna’s unconventional ideas on life, love and Agatha Christie opened something in Jess and she falls in with group of rulebreakers; Alec, the driven South African journalist, Georgie gorgeous pill popping aristo and Alec’s girlfriend. Nick, the Indian geology student who wants to be more than friends with Jess. It’s too perfect, so which one of them tears the group apart?
In the aftermath Jess turns to Lorna and in the heat of an Italian summer on a remote island she unearths the seeds that grew into perennial tragedy.

Cartier’s Hope, M.J. Rose

I love M.J's books and I think this is her best in the long line. Also, this is set in 1910, before women got the vote and although we've come a very long way since then, we still have a long way to go. 
1910 New York: on the face of it, socialite Vera Garland and undercover reporter Vee Swan have nothing in common. Vera is the daughter of a retail tycoon and Vee thinks nothing of living in crowded filthy tenements to uncover stories of injustice. But Vee is Vera’s alter ego, the woman who encouraged by her father feels that she can make a difference in the world.
Vera has seen her share of tragedy too, a recent back injury, the loss of a beloved Uncle and the devastating death of her father has pulled the rug from under her. A letter will change all that, shed light on a well-hidden family secret and set Vera, as Vee Swan, on the path to take down the man she holds responsible for her father’s death. On that path stand Pierre Cartier, jeweler and showman extraordinaire and the legendary Hope diamond said to bring bad luck to whoever possesses it…

Pretty As A Picture, Elizabeth Little

'We all know that Billy Lyle was obsessed with Caitlyn Kelly. We all know he killed her. This movie has Oscar written all over it!'

Marissa Dahl has always been a little odd but as an up and coming film editor she spends more time cutting together rough footage than walking red carpets and who wouldn’t want in on the next Tony Rees production? Rees may be an egomaniac wunderkind but his name would certainly gloss her resume - as long as he doesn’t remember her faux pas at the Venice film festival.

She joins the cast and crew out on location: an old rambling hotel on isolated Kickout Island. Marissa had no plans to solve one murder let alone two but then the movies's star tries to go all method by attempting to prove his guilty character innocent and all hell breaks loose she really has no choice.

First Cut, Judy Melinek & T.J. Mitchell

Tech utopia San Francisco was supposed to be a fresh start for medical examiner Dr. Jessie Teska but like the fog that blankets the bay some things weigh heavy; the fact that closing the case seems more important to her chief than the victim, a dangerous variant of opioid, the treachery of a colleague and echos of her own troubled past. Jessie's cases, one in particular, could make her the next victim...

The Tenant, Katrine Engberg

New Nordic noir! Enberg’s US debut has it all, Copenhagen, grisly murder, and a budding mystery novelist who just happens to own the building where that murder took place.

Odd couple detectives Korner and Werner alibi their main suspect out and within hours there's been another murder. Have they made a career ending mistake?

Mycroft and Sherlock The Empty Birdcage, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft Holmes, after restorative surgery on his heart, is summoned by her majesty. The 411 killer is terrorizing England and the Queen wants the killer caught. Mycroft hands this off to Sherlock because the boy is champing at the bit, determined to catch a killer who leaves no trace. Mycroft and his friend Douglas are hunting a missing bridegroom; a Chinese National engaged to Mycroft’s friend Ai Lin. Mycroft has promised her father he will help to recover him. Meanwhile Sherlock, assisted by Mycroft’s driver is uncovering clues by orthodox and unorthodox means.

Rabbit Hunter, Lars Kepler

Sweden’s politicians are being targeted by a terrorist, with one minister already dead Saga Bauer of the security police is drawn into the case and so is Joona Linna who is still serving his sentence for assaulting another officer. Linna targets the terrorist, insinuating himself into the man’s network and carrying a vital message to the outside, what happens next puts Linna back in prison and Bauer on a plane to a secure facility in America where a witness waits. Bauer hopes this witness can tell her everything, if the woman hasn’t completely lost her mind.