Sara Paretsky weaves the  pandemic and its complications into the plot of  her 21^st V.I. Warshawski thriller, Overboard, due out in May. Chicagoans are emerging from lockdown as everyone is trying to figure out how to stay safe, and private investigator Vic packs masks and hand sanitizer along with her lock picks and Smith & Wesson.

Alerted by her two dogs, Vic finds a teenage girl who seems near death hiding in the boulders along Lake Michigan. Conscious long enough to whisper one foreign word to Vic before the rescue squad arrives, the teen later disappears from the hospital after being interrogated by a policeman and a janitor who can speak Hungarian.

Vic takes off with her dog Mitch to find the girl again before she comes to harm. For some reason, the girl is a threat to crooks who will kill her once she gives them something they value. To complicate the action, Vic is dealing with another teen, Brad Litvak, who secures her services to figure out if his father Donny is in danger.

The plot becomes a tangle as Vic discovers Brad’s mother may be having an affair with one of the villains who is looking for the missing teen, now identified as Julia Zigler, while the girl’s own uncle Gus Zigler is trying to steal her inheritance. 

A belligerent cop with a history of brutality but no convictions figures into all this somehow. Vic clashes with him repeatedly as she works furiously putting all the puzzle pieces together to save Julia and help Brad’s family, all the while running the rest of her investigator business, which includes some pro bono work to help some friends save their Temple from vandals and a city inspector who wants to condemn the building. Seemingly, all these situations are linked as Vic puts her life on the line to find the connecting threads.

Sara Paretsky never disappoints with her multi-layered detective fiction. Kansas raised, Paretsky has been living in Chicago since 1968. She has a Ph.D. in history and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting March 20, 2022.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

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The Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews

 Mary Kay Andrews embraces the whole home-fixer-up genre on television as she releases her latest novel, a murder mystery called The Homewreckers, in May.

Hattie Kavanaugh flips houses for a living with her father-in-law’s company in Savannah, Georgia. Obsessed with the business, Hattie has little time for anything outside of her job. A widow, Hattie first refuses the proposition of Maurice Lopez, an executive producer of home improvement programs, to star in a series about flipping houses in her city called Saving Savannah.

However, Hattie changes her mind because a bad flip investment has put her finances in jeopardy. But what she thinks she is signing up for is not what Rebecca Sanzone, the head of the HPT network, has in mind: a show called The Homewreckers, combining a home improvement show and a dating program by bringing in hot decorator Trae Bartholomew to woo Hattie. What could possibly go wrong with switching up things for Hattie who does not suspect what is going on?

During Demo Day, Hattie’s best friend and foreman, Cassidy, finds a wallet between the walls in the bathroom of the house on Tybee Island they are flipping for the program.  The contents of the wallet reveal it belongs to Lanier Ragan, a woman who just disappeared 17 years ago leaving behind a husband and a young child. Coincidentally, that woman was Hattie and Cassidy’s high school English teacher. What will an investigation into a long-missing woman’s wallet do to the already tight timeline for The Homewreckers? What might this clue lead to in solving the mystery about what happened to Lanier?

Mary Kay Andrews  a pseudonym for Kathy Hogan Trocheck, is definitely one of my go-to authors for summer reads. A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, she started her professional journalism career in Savannah, Georgia, where she covered the real-life murder trials that were the basis of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a non-fiction novel by John Berendt. A former journalist, Andrews has lived in Raleigh, North Carolina, but is currently residing in Atlanta and has her own hideaway on Tybee Island.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting March 18, 2022.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

The Good Left Undone by AdrianaTrigiani

 Adriana Trigiani has returned to Italy for her multigenerational novel, The Good Left Undone, coming out in April. Meet the women of the Cabrelli family including Matelda Cabrelli Roffo, the family matriarch in the present-day timeline of the story.

Matelda, facing the final years of her life in Viareggio, Italy, decides it is time to part with her family secret about her mother Domenica Cabrelli. Matelda narrates the story of her mother starting in 1920 when Domenica, an intelligent, high energy 11-year-old girl, befriends the town outcast, Silvio. When Silvio is once again attacked by a group of boys and nearly loses his eye this time, Domenica helps the doctor attend to Silvio’s injured face, realizing her purpose in life.

When she is older, Domenica studies to become a nurse, but before her education is complete, she is sent away from Viareggio because a fuss was raised by the Catholic priest when Domenica gives  a young mother a pamphlet about birth control. Domenica goes to Marseilles, France, for further training while the situation she created in Viareggio calms down. However, a world war alters her plans completely.

An aspect of World War II that many may not know is that much like the Japanese were interred in camps in America during the war, Italians living in Great Britain were interred in camps there before being removed to other countries. Domenica’s life is drastically changed when one of the ships ferrying the prisoners across the seas is attacked by the Germans. When she is finally able to return home, she will have a new last name and a 6-year-old Matelda.

Adriana Trigiani is the New York Times bestselling author of 18 books in fiction and nonfiction. She is also an award-winning film director and screenwriter, playwright, and television writer and producer. She wrote and directed the award-winning major motion picture Big Stone Gap, based on her debut novel, filmed entirely on location in her Virginia hometown. She lives in Greenwich Village with her family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 27, 2022.

I would like to thank PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

 Sally Hepworth falls short of her previous novels in her latest, the Younger Wife. Readers are supposed to find Stephen Aston magnanimous – loving husband, wonderful father, successful cardiac surgeon, blah, blah, blah --  but how so when he already is married and is making plans to divorce his Alzheimer’s-inflicted wife Pam  to marry a woman younger than his adult daughters? Furthermore, his daughters are hanging out with the new younger wife-to-be instead of being up in arms that their father would treat their mother this way.

Everybody has secrets in this story, except seemingly for Stephen with his outward cheating on his sick wife. He takes the new woman to dinner with friends of his and Pam’s. Only one person rings true in that scenario – a friend of Pam’s who stands up for the ailing wife. Stephen also takes the homewrecker to professional functions.

While Stephen seems to be living out in the open with his mistress, readers learn that both of his daughters have serious problems as well as does his mistress -- problems involving rape, kleptomania, and alcoholism

While readers usually have to brace themselves for a mind-blowing ending in Hepworth’s books, this time they will be puzzling over it instead.

Having read all of Hepworth’s novels, I found myself disappointed in this one, hoping it is just a one-off. She is the bestselling author of eight novels including The Good Sister. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family.

 

The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian seems to be channeling Agatha Christie in his latest novel, The Lioness, in which a party of nine travelers to the Serengeti dwindles down in this mystery-thriller-historical fiction all rolled up into one fast-paced book. Hollywood actress Katie Barstow is getting married, and just for fun she wants to take special people in her life on an after-honeymoon photo trip to Africa.

The expedition is hardly underway when the vacationers are overtaken by Russian mercenaries. The political climate in 1964 was such that Moscow was meddling in Africa as it was believed that Africans would embrace the Russian model of socialism as part of a plan for modernization. But what did that have to do with a group of people whose lives were involved in acting, writing, and publicizing in Hollywood? Just who was the target of this attack?

Each chapter is introduced with a gossipy blurb about one of the safari bound, be it about Katie, her psychologist brother, her actress friend, or her recent co-star. Bohjalian builds suspense throughout the mystery by bringing one chapter to a close in the midst of high dramatic tension and plunging into the next chapter from a different character’s point of view.

A trip to Africa is treacherous enough with all the things that could happen such as animal attacks and snake bites without confrontations and threats by ruthless Russian thugs.  The number in the vacationing party diminishes  as the tension builds toward a climax of betrayal and more killings. Those who survive will never be the same.

Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 books. His books have been translated into 35 languages. A few of his books have been made into movies, and his The Flight Attendant became a big series hit for HBO. His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, and Salon.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 17, 2022.

I would like to thank Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

 Following the success of her first book in this series and spurred on by her fans, Kentucky author Kim Michele Richardson’s second book, The Book Woman's Daughter, will arrive in stores in May. Cussy Mary, the beloved book woman, takes a backseat in this story as the protagonist is her daughter Honey Mary-Angeline Lovett.

When Honey’s parents are arrested for violating miscegenation laws, 16-year-old Honey must survive without them in the rugged Kentucky mountains or else be caught and sent away to the orphans’ home or to the House of Reform, neither a kind option. With a lawyer’s help, Honey can stay in Troublesome Creek with a guardian designated by her parents.

Blue-skinned like her biological parents and Cissy Mary because of a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, Honey can cover up the blue with socks and gloves, as those are the only areas on her body that turn blue.  While those who know her love her, Honey is an outcast among others.

When Honey’s guardian Loretta passes away, Honey decides she must show the courts that she can take care of herself. Turns out, the old packhorse library route is to be started up again, and with Cussy Mary’s faithful mule Junia, Honey secures the job delivering books to those living remotely in the Appalachians.

The husband of one of her patrons soon proves to be the villain of the story as he not only runs Honey off his property, threatening her so she does not bring reading material to his abused wife, he also preys on two women in Troublesome Creek, one a miner working to support herself and her child after the death of her husband and the other a troubled young girl with a pet rooster.

When the state challenges Honey’s status as someone her age trying to become emancipated, the decision for Honey to be on her own or sentenced to the House of Reform until she is 21 is in the hands of a judge.

Kim Michele Richardson, best known for The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, brings history to life as she is inspired by both the “blue people” of Kentucky and the brave packhorse librarians who contributed to increased literacy levels among those isolated in the hills.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 1, 2022.

I would like to thank Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

 

What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline

 A family disappears, their house and his business burn to the ground, her business is robbed. What Happened to the Bennetts seeks to discover the answers in a powerful, twisty thriller from Lisa Scottoline.

The Bennett family includes Jason, his wife Lucinda, and their children. What no one knows but the FBI is that one night on a dark road, the family is at first dangerously tailgated then carjacked, leaving two people dead.

The FBI swoops in to persuade who is left of the family to go into witness protection as the carjackers are part of a deadly drug dealing gang as they are witnesses to the murders.. The remaining Bennetts are propelled into a life they do not know or understand, and they start coming undone as they withdraw from the life they once knew. When one of them learns a further truth behind the crime and goes rogue to bring about justice, even more lives are put at risk as the tenseness of the novel escalates.

Will the remaining Bennetts survive? Who is thwarting them at every turn? How will the murderer be brought to justice when a crime boss, a dirty cop, a self-serving lawyer, and a scheming politician keep getting in the way? This fast-paced novel will have readers up all night until they learn how everything shakes out.

Lisa Scottoline has written more than two dozen novels as well as a couple of nonfiction books with her daughter. Last year, she tried her hand at historical fiction with Eternal, which was well received. She also writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “Chick Wit.” She lives in Philadelphia with her horses, numerous dogs and cats, and a life-size cutout of Bradley Cooper.