Here is a list of some of the new releases for the week of June 4th, 2017. Since there were so very many books this week, I am going to divide them between the next four days. Here is the second day of my list. Hope you find some selections for your weekly reading. Enjoy and happy reading.
San Francisco bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright stumbles through the looking glass in a tale of murder, rare books, and a quest for the perfect pie
Brooklyn’s oh-so-proper future in-laws are traveling from England to meet her, and if that’s not enough to set her on edge, rumors abound that the charming Courtyard Shops across the street may be replaced by high-rise apartments. Their trendy neighborhood will be ruined unless Brooklyn and her fiance, Derek Stone, can persuade the shopkeepers not to sell.
But with a rare edition of Alice in Wonderland causing bad blood at the Brothers Bookshop and a string of petty vandalism making everyone nervous, Brooklyn and Derek feel like they’re attempting six impossible things before breakfast. Then the owner of the Rabbit Hole juice bar is felled by his own heavy shelves, and the local cobbler lies dead beside him. An accident . . . or something more sinister? Things get curiouser and curiouser when a second priceless copy of Alice is discovered. Will it stir up more trouble within the close-knit community?
As the Brits descend, Brooklyn learns they’re not so stuffy after all. Derek’s dad is won over with chocolate cream pie, and his psychic mum would kill to help Brooklyn solve this murder before another victim takes a tumble. (Goodreads)
* Novel-length expansion of original short story found in Charmed & Dangerous anthology. *
Welcome to Dim Sum Asylum: a San Francisco where it’s a ho-hum kind of case when a cop has to chase down an enchanted two-foot-tall shrine god statue with an impressive Fu Manchu mustache that’s running around Chinatown, trolling sex magic and chaos in its wake.
Senior Inspector Roku MacCormick of the Chinatown Arcane Crimes Division faces a pile of challenges far beyond his human-faerie heritage, snarling dragons guarding C-Town’s multiple gates, and exploding noodle factories. After a case goes sideways, Roku is saddled with Trent Leonard, a new partner he can’t trust, to add to the crime syndicate family he doesn’t want and a spell-casting serial killer he desperately needs to find.
While Roku would rather stay home with Bob the Cat and whiskey himself to sleep, he puts on his badge and gun every day, determined to serve and protect the city he loves. When Chinatown’s dark mystical underworld makes his life hell and the case turns deadly, Trent guards Roku’s back and, if Trent can be believed, his heart… even if from what Roku can see, Trent is as dangerous as the monsters and criminals they’re sworn to bring down. (Goodreads)
Cal Claxton’s old farmhouse sits high in Oregon’s Red Hills where some of the finest and most coveted acreage for growing the premier pinot noir grape are located. When the owner and gifted vintner of an up and coming winery is accused of murdering his wife, his property is put in play, and when a blackmail plot is hatched against the owner of adjacent land, it begins to look like a brutal game of Monopoly.
Cal agrees to defend the vintner, a good friend, and is pulled reluctantly into the blackmail plot. Can he rid his beloved Hills of this murderous threat or will he become the next target of a vicious, cunning killer?” (Goodreads)
When art recovery expert Laurel Beacham’s personal and professional worlds collide, she learns no good theft goes unpunished. Incomplete intel and a missing source compel her to make a huge mistake, and she’s left with a divided team. Every retrieved masterpiece has a price—and the cost of forgeries can be deadly. This time Laurel could lose not only her best lead, but also her most trusted ally.
The stakes have never been higher, forcing her and her partner, Jack, to go on the run, crisscrossing Europe to evade the criminals. Except instead of two masterminds working against them, they realize there might be three. With no time to lose, Laurel and her team must pool their resources and work to set aside their differences before they become the next fatalities.
“This third book in the Bodies of Art Mystery series is as engaging and entertaining a worldwide romp as the first two books, and I highly recommend the entire series. Ritter Ames has penned a marvelous story with Laurel Beacham continuing to show her cleverness and intuition portraying a strong character…I was thrilled!” – King’s River Life Magazine (on Abstract Aliases)
Related subjects include: women sleuths, cozy mysteries, amateur sleuth books, murder mysteries, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), international mysteries, crime capers, book club recommendations.
Books in the Bodies of Art Mystery Series:
COUNTERFEIT CONSPIRACIES (#1)
MARKED MASTERS (#2)
ABSTRACT ALIASES (#3)
FATAL FORGERIES (#4)
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you’ll probably like them all… (Goodreads)
Jane Marsh wants to shake off the empty nest syndrome, plus the notoriety of the death of her first and second husbands, by starting over in a new place. She sells her family home to move to a far northern suburb of Denver. At the same time, Jane’s dinner club is undergoing a transformation, and a new man—a gourmet chef—enters her life.
But, things turn sour when, on the day Jane moves into her new home, she discovers a dead body. She cannot feel at home in this town where she’s surrounded by cowboys, horse pastures, and suspects. Not to mention where a murder was committed practically on her doorstep. How can she focus on romance and dinner clubs when one of her new friends—or maybe even her old ones—might be a murderer? (Goodreads)
One crazy impressive art collection. One wicked old woman with a mission.
When eager young journalist River Halloway gets an intriguing new lead about a very large personal art collection, she is thrilled to finally have something to write about other than the boring daily goings on in sleepy Brimstone Bay. But when the story leads her to a rich old woman’s mansion that is rumored to be haunted, she begins to suspect that there’s more to the art collection than first meets the eye. When people in town begin acting like soul-less zombies, and she senses an unfamiliar and terrifying energy in the home, River is forced to draw on her talents as a witch to discover what’s going on, or else not only simply risk losing her story for the paper, but risk losing her very soul forever.
This is book 4 of the Brimstone Bay Mysteries series. If you’re a fan of Amanda M. Lee, Juliette Harper, and Amy Boyles, then be sure to get your fill of magic, mystery, and murder with this cozy new paranormal mystery series. (Goodreads)
Oh, the hoops Maggie must jump through on the way to getting horizontal…
Tonight is the night that Maggie Mae Castro and her boyfriend, FBI Special Agent Clive Poole, will finally have thoroughly thought-out, all-options-weighed, completely premeditated, totally intentional sex. There’s just one little problem. Maggie’s twin brother, Miguel, is missing and his girlfriend begs Maggie to find him.
Having seen Miguel’s rap sheet, Clive is sure this is just another stunt designed to get the con artist out of whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into. But as Maggie digs deeper, she discovers that Miguel swindled a very scary man out of a very large sum of money.
Maggie strikes a deal with the man Miguel conned—if she brings Miguel back, her brother lives, if the man’s henchmen get their hands on him first, all bets are off. The race is on across state lines. But the con has gone on too long, and even Maggie’s best finagling might not be enough to convince Miguel to give the money back—or keep the man from killing Miguel just to set an example.
Warning: Contains sex talk that might lead to something other than sex; a stubborn, sex-denied woman on the edge; a super-protective Super Agent; a pissed-off con who got conned; and a baby-talking baby mama. We’re talking about Maggie Mae Castro here—you never know what’s going to go down. (Goodreads)
Poison du Jour
The Statue of Liberty is 130 years old, and for the struggling residents of Hubbard, Ohio, any opportunity to bring in tourists is reason enough for a celebration. Laurel Inwood and her aunt, Sophie, are pitching in. Sophie’s Terminal at the Tracks, a former greasy spoon turned charming ethnic eatery, will be offering French cuisine for the entire week.
For expert help with their quiche and escargot, the ladies turn to Raquel “Rocky” Arnaud, a former French chef and friend of Sophie. What looks like a match made in heaven turns rank as quickly as buttermilk on a summer’s day. Rocky turns up dead and when her nightly red wine shows notes of oak, cinnamon, and poison, Laurel turns from souffle to sleuth.
INCLUDES A RECIPE (Goodreads)
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