If you are a fan of good crime fiction, start the year right with Kathleen Kent’s “Detective Betty” trilogy, which follow the ups and (mostly) downs of a tough-as-nails, Brooklyn-born, Dallas-based narcotics detective. Betty Rhyzyk was raised by a family of policemen, but was all but destroyed by the death of her brother and the rampant police corruption in Brooklyn. For love, Betty has followed her partner Jackie to Dallas, where she is also hoping for an easier gig. Unfortunately, Betty is still haunted by her past, and not only are the good old boys in blue just as corrupt in Texas, Betty’s new batch of bad guys aren’t afraid of her one bit, even if she is carrying and badge and a gun.
In Betty’s first outing in The Dime, a vengeful cult leader Evangeline Roy tortures and nearly kills Betty. Both women survive and Roy escapes, leaving Betty perpetually looking over her shoulder, even as she throws herself into chasing down the next criminal. In the subsequent volumes of her adrenaline-filled story, The Burnand The Pledge, Betty’s dogged sense of right and wrong get her in more trouble than most of her male counterparts, and her inability to let go of an investigation or listen to authority figures has her on the outs with her superiors more often than not. Even when she’s closing drug cartel cases, catching criminals and getting promotions, Betty faces adversity as a female detective and as a lesbian on the force, and finds she must work that much harder to get respect. No worries –Detective Betty Rhyzyk thrives under pressure. Fans of Michael Connelly’s books and smart, high-octane crime fiction should snap this trilogy up and get ready to enjoy.
This is the first entry in the “Silver Screen Historical Novels’ series by Barbara Hambly. It’s 1924 when Emma Blackstone joins her sister-in-law Kitty Flint, a Hollywood actress whose stage name is Camille de la Rose, on the set as Kitty’s girl Friday. (Emma’s American husband is killed in WWI and her extended family died from the Spanish flu.) Kitty’s first husband, Rex Festraw, is found shot to death in her dressing room, and someone is trying to frame Kitty for the murder. Emma and her significant other, cameraman Zal Rokatansky, are very clever in figuring out who the murderer really is.
For fans of historical fiction and Hollywood in the 1920’s, this is a quick fun read by the prolific author Barbara Hambly.
It’s been some time since I read a novel that truly surprised me and Catriona Ward’s The Last House on Needless Street not only surprised me, it astonished me. This strikingly original, difficult, and heartfelt novel disguises itself as a horrific story about a serial killer and a missing child, leading readers down disturbing paths and in all the wrong directions as it slowly but surely reveals itself to be much more.
Told through the perspective of multiple narrators, we follow the life of Ted, a strange and lonely man who lives at the end of the forebodingly named Needless Street. He has boarded up all the windows in his house, which sits at the edge of a deeply wooded park and regularly hosts visits with his estranged daughter. His only friend appears to be his cat Olivia- who is also a narrative voice and is quite charming.
The tale opens on the anniversary of the disappearance of a young girl, a disappearance that Ted was initially suspected of causing, and we also meet the vengeful sister of the missing girl who is still trying to track down her sister’s potential murderer years later. This deeply layered plot is revealed little by little with each chapter, and keen readers will note right off the bat that all is not as it seems with each narrator, and we are clearly not getting a complete picture.
The final few twists of this novel are stunning, and absolutely heartbreaking, making this a standout novel of psychological horror, but also an emotional story of trauma and finally, and most importantly, hope. A detailed author’s note at the end further explains Ward’s excellent work on this story and why this is a very realistic tale of trauma. Highly recommended for fans of deeply woven mysteries, unreliable narrators, and psychological horror.
Note: There are some very upsetting and intense scenes in this novel, particularly depicting animal abuse and child abuse, so please proceed with this trigger warning in mind.
What happens when you are accused of fabricating the worst night of your life? How do you deal with the fact that the people meant to help you think you’re the criminal? This case is wild! With a stranger abduction, rape, mistaken identities, secret organizations, cops with tunnel vision, it’s no surprise that this case was referred to as the real life Gone Girl. Victim F follows Denise and Aaron through Denise’s abduction, the tragic aftermath, and ultimately their recovery efforts as well as lawsuits. A fantastic true crime read.
As an avid consumer of all things true crime, it’s always exciting to discover "new to me" cases. The kidnapping of George Weyerhaeuser is one such case. I also enjoy these “old-timey” cases; I find the distance between myself and the time of the crime offers me a bit of an emotional break from modern cases. Anyone else feel that way? Well, Deep in the Woods does not disappoint. The crime itself was strange and frankly, fascinating, the trials stranger, and the ending, the epilogue, the strangest of all. I listened to this one thanks to Netgalley and Tantor and found the narration to be perfection that added to the enjoyment of the story. Fans of historical crimes, kidnappings, and totally bonkers cases will enjoy this one.
In his smart and funny “Hawthorne and Horowitz” series of whodunnits, author Anthony Horowitz writes himself directly into the books, playing a bumbling, self-deprecating sidekick to the often gruff and sometimes mysterious, private detective Daniel Hawthorne. The results are three (so far) very readable and enjoyable crime novels, in which Hawthorne finds his killer and Horowitz documents the investigation along the way, hoping for his next bestseller.
In book 3, A Line to Kill, Horowitz (the character) is wanting to impress his editors and finally introduces them to Hawthorne, a move that backfires when both men are sent to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England. Horowitz is aghast that Hawthorne has been included, as Hawthorne hasn’t written a single word, but is happy enough to have the investigator along after a local bigwig is found dead under mysterious circumstances.
The island is locked down until the murderer is found, and the suspects include a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of angry locals feuding over a planned power line that threatens to wreck the island’s ambiance and environment. Hawthorne finds himself enjoying the literary festival after all, and certainly won’t let anything stop him from finding the killer, not even the local cops who have never seen a dead body before.
These character rich mysteries are like modern day Agatha Christie novels -leisurely paced, rich in detail and plot points, along with plenty of dry humor that is often directed towards the world of books and writers. While A Line to Kill can be enjoyed on its own, I recommend first reading The Word is Murderand The Sentence is Death. And then, like me, you’ll be eagerly waiting for the next in this original series.
It’s the end of the year (where did the time go??), and there’s been a lot of really great books published in 2021! My list is of course very science fiction and fantasy heavy, but what can I say? I’m a lady who likes spaceships and unicorns.
Without further ado, here is my top ten of 2021 – click any of the book covers below to be taken to our catalog, where you can request a copy of the book with your library card number and PIN.
10. The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
9. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
8. TheWitness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
7. Broken (in the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson
6. The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
5. Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
4. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
3. The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
2. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
And last but not least, my favorite book of 2021:
1. The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
Time travelling alternate history queer love story – plus naval battles and the Napoleonic Wars… what’s not to love? You can read my review of this excellent novel here. You can also find all of these titles by searching in our digital library.
Well, that’s a wrap on 2021 for me. Be sure to check out the top ten lists of other staff members this week!
I’ve always loved to read so I can travel somewhere else, but thank goodness for reading and books in these last couple of years. They were a means to escape the stresses of the daily pandemic, to think about something different for a bit. This doesn’t mean the books I enjoyed were not challenging for the most part, but they let my brain shift to another time, another character, another place. And at the same time, they encouraged my engagement with essential issues: gender, autocracy, art, racism, antisemitism, history, language, belonging, love.
Some of these were published this year, some fiction, a couple of non-fiction, some I found on my own, others recommended by readers that I know. There are many more to get to and the pile next to my bed is still unwieldy, but I was held steady and engaged with the following titles:
The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernandez, Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel andSongs for the Flames: Storiesby Juan Gabriel Vasquez are all novels set in South America. I’ve always been interested in South American countries, their histories and political trends, and these titles all tell of that violent history, blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction, to try to capture the otherworldly feelings of war and terrorism and how everyday people tried to understand and respond.
In. by Will McPhail, And Now I Spill the Family Secretsby Margaret Kimball, andThe Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel are graphic novels that cover a range of topics, from loneliness and the need for connection. to family dysfunction, to the emergence of fitness culture in the U.S. Funny, informative, moving, weird – mixed with great art – what else do you need?
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa, Not a Novelby Jenny Erpenbeck and Letters to Camondo by Edmund de Waal are memoirs/biographies, stories of self with a lot of history mixed in. I loved A Ghost it the Throat, written so beautifully by an Irish poet, a book that dives into the lives of women, current and past, through an exploration into a famous Irish poem. Not a Novel is a series of essays by novelist Erpenbeck about her life growing up in East Germany and the lasting effects on her life. Letters to Camondo is told through a series of letters about a Jewish-French art collector who tried to assimilate into French culture but whose prodigy were destroyed by war and French collaboration. De Waal’s Hare with the Amber Eyesis great, too.
The rest of my favorites are novels that have struck me in some way: through writing, story, humor, insight. These include Matrix by Lauren Groff, about a 12th century nun who creates her own feminist idyll and Our Country Friendsby Gary Shteyngart, who writes of a group of friends forced together during the pandemic, modelled on Anton Chekhov’s plays. Then there was The Wrong End of the Telescope, by Rabih Alameddine, with moods ranging from funny to devastating, about a transgender doctor who left Lebanon to live her life, and has now returned to the Meditteranean to help refugees. Oh, William! is Strout‘s latest about Lucy Barton and is told as if Lucy is spilling it all to the reader. It’s sparse, but playful, informed by Lucy’s traumatic past. Carter Sickels‘ The Prettiest Star, won the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in Fiction; it’s the story of a young man who left Ohio to be able to live his true life, who returns home to his family, dying of AIDS. Exploring hatred, prejudice, ignorance and love, it’s a gem. Snowflake by debut Irish author Louise Nealon, is compared to Sally Rooney’s books, but I found it to be less angsty and more interesting. Nealon’s protagonist is from poor stock, but is smart and so is accepted into university. As she meets people more affluent than her, she learns that they might not be as happy as she imagined.
I’ll finish with two last books. One, I’ve started, but haven’t finished: Kinby Miljenko Jergović, a Croation author. At 800 or so pages, it’s going to take me through this Winter, but so far it’s the kind of book I love. Set in Eastern Europe, it’s an epic about generations of family living through history that changed everything around them. And the last is the most recent in a science fiction series, The Wayfarers by Becky Adams. To me, her books are a perfect blend of envisioning the future, with a firm grip on humanity and a dose of humor thrown in.
I hope you find something to carry you through this time in the books that I’ve loved this year. If you have any favorites to recommend, feel free to comment and share!
The Viper by Christobel Kent A lovely series taking place in Florence with an aging detective , Sandro Cellini, working as a PI. You will fall in love with the characters and the scenery.
Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian A YA-style read that answers the question, what would happen if you brought a group of psychopaths to a college campus to study them?
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves A new series by the UK’s queen of crime. Beautiful but bleak settings, genuine and dedicated characters- a lovely addition to the Ann Cleeves universe.
Northern Spy by Flynn Berry Tessa’s non-political, hometown sister, Marian, is caught on video blowing up a gas station in Northern Ireland with members of the IRA. The police think she’s a member, Tessa thinks she’s been kidnapped.
The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor A single mother takes a job as a vicar in a small village. Of course she must find out where the bodies are buried. Not a cozy mystery.
The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow Women gathering together, casting spells during the turbulent time of the suffragettes- they will help women find their power by any means necessary.
Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella Cady Archer attends Harvard the year after her older brother committed suicide, hoping to understand his death. I’m pretty sure I remember something creepy happens.
Read it or Weep 