Adult Fiction
New adult fiction
Fear Death by Water: a Harry Brock Mystery by Kinley E. Roby
The Paths of the Air by Alys Clare
Clare's absorbing 11th entry in her Hawkenlye series (The Enchanter's Forest, etc.) highlights the many perils of life in medieval England. One cold November day in 1196, an exhausted stranger arrives at the estate of Sir Josse d'Acquin, a loyal soldier of the king bored with inactivity. Josse gives the man shelter in an outbuilding, suspecting him to be the servant of a crusader recently returned from the Holy Land. After a fortnight, the stranger abruptly vanishes, then a body, brutalized beyond recognition, turns up in the nearby woods. Meanwhile, a prisoner exchange gone wrong has led to a hunt across Europe for a runaway monk carrying unknown treasure. Josse relies on Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye Abbey for counsel and solace, while the local sheriff, Gervase de Gifford, helps Josse track down a secret with the potential to change warfare forever. A lurid subplot set in the Holy Land adds to the suspense. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
The Victoria Vanishes: a Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler
Starred Review. Officialdom casts a skeptical eye on the unorthodox crime solving of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit in Fowler's excellent sixth novel to feature senior detectives Arthur Bryant and John May (after 2007's White Corridor). While the unit's members scheme to insure their professional survival, a serial killer is targeting middle-aged women who drop dead in pubs, apparently of natural causes. Bryant puts the investigation on his team's docket after realizing that he observed one of the victims, shortly before her demise, enter the Victoria Cross, a pub that hasn't existed for almost a century. Characters who could easily have been caricatures in lesser hands assume enough depth to make them both plausible and engaging. If this is indeed the last in the series as the conclusion suggests, then the versatile author has ended on a high note. Those who appreciate Fowler's special blend of the macabre, dark humor and impossible crime puzzles will wish they haven't seen the last of Bryant and May. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Delivery Room by Sylvia Brownrigg
A London therapist gets a lesson in pain and empathy in Brownrigg's sparkling latest (after Morality Tale). It's 1998, and Mira Braverman's home office (dubbed the delivery room by her husband) overfloweth with troubled types. There's the Bigot, Howard, a divorced diplomat who needles Mira about her Serbian heritage; the American, Jess, a single female journalist who longs for a baby; the Aristocrat, Caroline, who is fighting a battle with infertility; and the Mourning Madonna, Kate, who lost a daughter in utero. Only when Mira's husband, Peter, is diagnosed with terminal lymphoma is Mira able to empathize with her patients, particularly as Peter's health declines. In many ways, this novel is also about parenting those who long to be mothers and can't, and those who are ambivalent about the responsibilities. Because so much of the novel revolves around sessions, the narrative can become claustrophobic, but patient readers will appreciate Brownrigg's detailed portrayals of the therapist and client dynamic, and the prose is tack sharp and effortlessly lyrical. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Esther’s Inheritance by Sandor Marai
Starred Review. In this spellbinding fourth novel to be published posthumously in English (after The Rebels), Márai (1900 1989) weaves a passionate tale about a woman whose chance at love is very nearly stolen from her. Harbored peaceably at her family home in middle age with a cousin as her only companion after a lifelong disappointment in love, Esther receives a telegram from her former flame, Lajos, a masterful con artist who had declared his love for Esther, but then married her younger sister, Vilma. Lajos is locally beloved and reviled, and his dazzling return with his two grown children by Vilma (who has since died) and a mysterious other woman and her son to whom he is indebted in tow raises dark suspicions in Esther and her relatives. Márai's characterization of Lajos through the eyes of skeptical, still smitten Esther is deliciously portentous; the deceptions woven around these characters introduce a sharp sliver of danger into the narrative, especially as Esther's reliability is called into question. Márai is a fascinating writer readers of English will want more of. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Canvey Island by James Runcie
In 1953, a major flood devastated Britain's Canvey Island, killing dozens of residents. Runcie (The Discovery of Chocolate) uses this disaster as the starting point for his beautifully crafted novel, which examines the effects of guilt, love, lust and betrayal in the wake of tragedy. On the night of the flood, Lily skips the big dance on the mainland to stay home with her young son, Martin, telling her husband, Len, to go with her sister, Violet, and her husband. When the flood waters rise, Lily and Martin try to escape but Lily gets stuck, sends Martin for help yet drowns before rescuers arrive. Though Martin leaves the island to attend Cambridge, he cannot shake his guilt over his mother's death and resents his father and aunt, who take up together soon after the flood. Years later, when he's a parent himself, Martin returns to Canvey Island and is forced to confront everything he thought he had left behind. Told through multiple perspectives, Runcie's story eloquently weaves together a national tragedy and the fate of a single family with powerful results. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Anteater of Death by Betty Webb
Webb, author of Desert Cut and four other Lena Jones mysteries, launches a new series featuring a warm and unconventional heroine, zookeeper Theodora Teddy Bentley. Teddy is dismayed to learn that a pregnant anteater in her care, Lucy, appears to have mauled to death a prominent patron of California's Gunn Landing Zoo, Grayson Harrill. When it turns out that someone shot Harrill first, Teddy turns sleuth to discover who framed her beloved Lucy. The colorful supporting cast includes Teddy's beauty queen mother, who makes her daughter call her Caro; Harrill's wife and descendant of the zoo's founder; and the zoo's controversial director. Webb deftly weaves zoological lore into the fast-moving plot. She errs only in going too far in giving the anteater's point-of-view (Get out. If you don't get out, I'll uncurl my claws and give you a rake down your belly). The book's human perspective conveys everything we need to know about Lucy, her habitat and her behavior. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Veil of Lies: A Medieval Noir by Jeri Westerson
Crispin Guest, a former knight who was stripped of his rank after being implicated in a plot against Richard II, now makes his living as a tracker, the medieval equivalent of a PI, in Westerson's promising debut, set in 1384 London. Nicholas Walcote, a wealthy cloth merchant, hires Guest to investigate his younger and attractive wife, Philippa, whom he suspects of infidelity. Guest's cursory probe is derailed after his client is found stabbed to death in a locked room. Philippa retains Guest's services to find her husband's killer, who may have been motivated by Walcote's possessing a legendary relic reputed to force those in its proximity to tell the truth. While featuring a hard-boiled medieval sleuth instead of a monk or a nun may not be quite as groundbreaking as the author suggests in her afterword (e.g., Susanna Gregory's 14th-century Cambridge physician Matthew Bartholomew), this is nonetheless an entertaining read that makes the prospect of sequels welcome. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
