Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 6

London Séance Society, Sarah Penner

Lenna Wickes has apprecticed herself to Vaudeline D'Allaire the world famous medium. Now residing in Paris, Vaudeline's sometimes violent seances call in the spirits of the dead and enable them to name their murderer. Lenna's younger sister Evie studied with Vaudeline and was found stabbed in the garden of their London home; splintering Lenna's family and driving skeptic Lenna to Vaudeline's door. 

London beckons, a close friend of Vaudeline's, a high ranking member of the London Seance Society has been found murdered. He was delving into claims that his members were using parlour tricks to take advantage of rich widows. 

Lenna, confused by her growing attraction to the free spirited Vaudeline and in denial of her natural physic gifts agrees to accompany her teacher to London. Vaudeline is determined to unmask her friend's killer, the darker elements of the Society are determined to silence her for good and Lenna caught in the middle may have to save them both.

McMasters Guide To Homicide #1 Murder Your Employer, Rupert Holmes

There are people in this world whom no one would miss or mourn, their demise would make the world a better place. At McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts students learn how to successfully delete a single target and get away with it. It’s like Hogwarts but the M you learn isn’t Magic, it’s Murder.

Cliff tried and failed to murder his boss, he’s at McM’s on a scholarship- his mysterious benefactor - McM’s is eye-wateringly expensive - knows that as a McMaster’s graduate Cliff will pull off the perfect murder. Dulcie intends to murder the lecherous studio head who’s tanking her movie career and Gemma’s blackmailer could well be the death of her, and her mother.

Sanctuary, Katrine Engberg

A suitcase with part of a decaying corpse inside is discovered close to a children’s playground in Copenhagen. Annette Werner leads the investigation; her partner Jeppe Korner has taken an indefinite leave of absence on the island of Bornholm.

Evidence surfaces leading back to Bornholm and Werner co-opts Jeppe into asking ‘a few questions’ about the suitcase. He follows a trail leading back to a death that shattered the isolated community many years ago, a death that ruined lives. Did someone finally take their revenge?

Fans of Jo Nesbo will eat this up.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson

An Aussie murder mystery in the same vein as Clue with a dash of Knives Out.

Ernie Cunningham is a reliable’ish narrator. He’s inviting us to a family reunion at a remote and cold location. There will be murders - he even tells you the pages on which they will occur. He quite often chats to you - the reader- as you puzzle your way through this fiendishly clever mystery. 

Better The Blood, Michael Bennett

Detective Hana Westerman receives a video which leads her to a crime scene, a ritualistic killing and a curious inward curving symbol. More videos and symbols follow and Hannah, who is Maori begins to realize that New Zealand's first serial killer didn't target her by accident. As a young officer Hannah had to put her career over her Maori heritage helping to break up a tribal occupation on their claimed ancestral lands and someone who was there isn't going to let her forget it.

Hannah realizes that the murders are 'utu' - the Maori way of rebalancing a crime committed eight generations ago. Six British soldiers brutally executed a Maori chief for his campaign of non violent resistance to their bloody colonization of the tiny island and the killer is tracing the soldiers' descendants to exact justice. Because better the blood of innocents than no blood at all...

Judas 62, Charles Cumming

1993: Lachlan Kite used the alias Peter Galvin in an attempt to help smuggle a bio weapons expert out of Russia.  ‘Lockie’ was still a fledgling agent, keen to impress his mentor at Box 88. Things didn’t go quite to plan.

2020: The Galvin alias appears on the Judas list and only one man could’ve put it there. Before the Russians can discover his true identity and try to defenestrate him Kite, now the Director of Box 88 goes on the offensive. He sets up an op in Dubai that dangles irresistible bait in front of the FSB officer Kite humiliated over two decades ago. Will he bite or is Kite being led into a trap?

To enjoy this series from the beginning start with Box 88 (now out in paperback)

The Cloisters, Katy Hays

By a strange twist of fate Ann Stilwell’s summer post at New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art falls through and she lands at The Cloisters its older more gothic sister alongside monied researcher Rachel Mondray.

Both girls have tragedy in their past and Ann’s accidental discovery of an ancient deck of tarot could lead to future calamities as the lines between research and belief in the arcane blur.
For fans of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, It Girl by Ruth Ware, If We Were Villains by M L Rio, Discovery of Witches trilogy by Deborah Harkness.

Blackwater Falls, Ausma Zehanat Khan

Small town melting pot, or simmering racial tensions about to boil over?

In the idyllic Colorado town of Blackwater Falls, resident Inaya Rahman, a refugee from wars foreign and domestic is a part of the Community Response Unit. The CRU has been called in to attempt to wrest control of a racially sensitive murder investigation from the hands of the local crooked sheriff. In so doing elements of disharmony, in the local megachurch, the biker gang, the townsfolk, the refugees and the FBI become agitated and start adding weight to Inaya's view that something is very wrong in this place.

As if that wasn't enough, Inaya's boss is acting cold and distant, her family is trying to marry her off and the community organizer doesn't trust her but does let slip that some Somali girls went missing in the weeks before the murder....

The World We Make, N.K Jemisin

In City We Became, New York was bornas a fully sentient city.

That birth suffered complications, Staten Island’s Avatar enabled the woman in white to maintain a foothold in this dimension. Queens is threatened with deportation. Brooklyn is running for mayor against a dark money Senator who wants to ‘Make NY Great Again' and Manny is trying to rally older cities to New York’s aid with varying degrees of success. Jemisin once again sends a love letter to New York and the immigrant New Yorkers who shaped her.

If you haven't read City We Became I would start with that - be prepared to be uncomfortable. Jemisin will prick your conscience whilst entertaining the hell out of you.

Blitz (Rook #3), Daniel O'Malley

O'Malley continues his Checquy histories - if you ever wondered what the Checquy did during WW1 and 2 here is your answer. If you are new to this series start with 'The Rook' and then 'Stiletto' before diving into Blitz.

1936 : In the skies over London a trio of female Pawns watch the Nazi bombers approaching. They are forbidden to interfere, up until tonight they haven't; right up to the point where Pamela, the sanest of them all brings down a plane load of German airmen with her bare hands killing almost all onboard.

In present day South Shields, Librarian Lynette Binns manifests a shocking power that destroys her kitchen and puts her into the hands of the Checquy.

After a stint at an isolated supernatural school Lyn masters her power and is reunited with her husband and young daughter. All is going well. Until someone starts murdering London gangland bosses using Lyn’s unique ability. Lyn’s only hope of surviving is to catch the real killer.