by Sharon Tucker
“Fathers are important,” Jesse Stone tells a rebellious teenager in Robert B. Parker’s Night Passage. Love him or hate him, whether he is too present in your life or too absent, whether he’s a good father or a nightmare, and even if he is all of the above–we recognize the father as an inescapable archetype whose influence reverberates throughout our lives, proving to be infinitely fertile ground for writers to plunder. Lee Harris’s The Father’s Day Murder makes surprising use of the holiday as the major theme at the heart of her novel. Jonathan Kellerman’s The Butcher’s Theater strongly illustrates the influence for good or ill a father wields. Leonard Holton’s Out Of The Depths reminds us that not all good fathers sire children.
by Cynthia Chow
& Timothy Hallinan
There’s a good reason why professional thief Junior Bender would prefer to give up his side occupation as a private detective for criminals. With criminals as clients who want other criminals investigated, someone is always going to be unhappy and the probability is high that that someone already has a record of not following the law.
by Herschel Cozine
The disappearance of Jeff Lisbon is still a topic of conversation wherever people gather. It seemed incredible at the time that someone as famous as he could simply vanish without a trace. Sure, it happens now and then–take Jimmy Hoffa, for example, but this case was different. There wasn’t any rational explanation for Lisbon to “take a ride.”He wasn’t in that line of work. Ask any baseball fan and he will tell you about Jeff Lisbon. He was one of the greats. He broke into the Major Leagues in 1954, when ballplayers were still playing for the love of the game and not because they could make millions just for hitting 200.
by Cynthia Chow
& Waverly Fitzgerald
A divorce, the tanking of the real estate market, and being forced to move into a one-bedroom condo all have home stager Geri Sullivan in dire need of some unconditional love. That’s what she’s looking for when she goes to the Humane Society to pick out one of the 40 Chihuahuas shipped to Seattle after a certain celebrity made the purse dogs so popular that the Los Angeles shelters could no longer house them once the pets lost their trendiness. What Geri got was a sidekick with his own forceful personality, who nudges her into a new profession and becomes her companion, best friend, and life coach. Oh, and he also talks, telling Geri that his name is Pepe, now Pepe Sullivan.
by Ted Feit
A pattern seems to be developing in the Junior Bender series. In the debut novel, Crashed, Junior, a professional burglar, was blackmailed, indirectly, by Trey Annunziato, the female head of a crime family, to steal a Klee. In this, the second book in the series, he is blackmailed by a detective to try to protect his uncle, Vincent DiGaudio, from a murder rap. I guess we’ll have to wait for the third installment, expected in June, The Fame Thief, to find out whether the trend continues.
by Paula Gail Benson
Many descriptions apply to New York Times bestselling novelist Robert Dugoni. In addition to being the author of such fast paced legal thrillers as The Jury Master, Wrongful Death, Bodily Harm, and Murder One, he has worked as a reporter, actor, and attorney. He brings his knowledge from previous occupations to his writing, but he also brings something else: an uncanny ability for creating characters and placing them in realistic, thought-provoking situations.
by Brenda Williamson
“Happy Father’s Day,” she told him, as they stood in the moonlight on the boardwalk at the deserted marina. “When I kill you and you vanish, the kids will think you abandoned them; this will be the last Father’s Day they will remember you fondly.”
by Cynthia Chow
One would have thought that being Frank Michaels of Channel Three’s Frank Finance Show would mean that “Mr. Finance” would be the least likely to fall victim to a Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, for Maddie Michaels though, her husband did invest all of their savings with an investor who promptly stole all of their money, leaving it up to Maddie to figure out a way to scrimp and save and not have Frank risk losing his reputation and job at the television station due to his poor judgment.
by Lorie Lewis Ham
Blood Kiss is a vampire/noir movie written by award-winning writer Michael Reaves (Batman The Animated Series, Gargoyles, Star Trek TNG). It also stars Amber Benson of Buffy fame and writer Neil Gaiman in his first real acting role (where he’s not playing himself).
by Cynthia Chow
& Robert Rotstein
Parker Stern was a brilliant and relentless litigator until news of his mentor Harmon Cherry’s suicide triggers paralyzing stage fright. Appearances in the court room now induce panic attacks and render him nearly incoherent, so only a plea from his former law partner Rich Baxter and the guilt-inducing pressure from his other former partner Deanna Poulos have the chance of drawing him back into the legal field.
by Kay Kendall
Jack Reacher often stalks the store, keeping an eye on the more than 25,000 books on display. He even looks at home behind the counter, where the cash register sits. In fact, he acts as if he owns the place.
by Kathleen Kaska
I love reading Sherlock Holmes pastiches. For generations clever writers have taken Holmes and sent him around the world, into the future, the past, into outer space, and even to Texas. They’ve made him a teenager, a woman, a Jack Russell terrier, a rat; given him a wife, a female Dr. Watson, and an alien as a partner. He’s battled Martians, vampires, and Jack the Ripper.
by Cynthia Chow
& Sandra Murphy
Here we are again with another great group of 5 Penguin mystery novels filled with sleuthing cats, dogs, clothes, supernatural, cooking & more! Killer in Crinolines: A Consignment Shop Mystery by Duffy Brown, Cat Nap: A Sunny & Shadow Mystery By Claire Donally, Trouble Vision: A Raven’s Nest Bookstore Mystery By Allison Kingsley, Bled and Breakfast: An Immortality Bites Mystery By Michelle Rowen and Gluten for Punishment by Nancy J. Parra.
by Peter DiChellis
A hit and run at 45 mph delivers brutal violence to a pedestrian. First, the penetrating impact of the fast-moving front bumper forces the victim upward, over the hood, to skull-crack into the windshield, causing grim head and neck injuries. Then the unfortunate wretch crashes across the speeding vehicle’s metal roof, slams hard off the trunk and takes a final bone-breaking plunge onto the roadway asphalt. Exactly what happened to Debbie Fulsen that night?
by Ted Feit
The thrust of this eighth Walt Longmire novel is two-fold. Walt and his sidekick, the “Bear,” also known as the Cheyenne Nation, are charged with arranging the wedding of Walt’s daughter, a formidable task for the two men.
by Cynthia Chow
Only in Absaroka County, Wyoming do the duties of Sheriff Walt Longmire include investigating the very helpful handyman angels that seem to be fixing the roof and cleaning out the gutters of one of the County’s elderly and “eccentric” citizens. The helpful angel turns out to be less ethereal and more fleet of foot, and Walt is soon on a manhunt for a fifteen year-old pantsless fugitive.
