Book Reviews by vicki rock

It is 1968 and socialite Vera Huntington lives in Soho, London. She loves Ronnie Scott’s jazz club. Her new friend, Frances Adams, is there. But now Vera is in trouble and asks Frances if she has a friend who can help her. Frances is majoring in psychology and works at a diner.

Fast forward to present day. When Annie Adams heads to London to visit her mother, Laura, a famous artist, the last thing she expects to find is a dead body. Least of all for it to be Laura’s new protégée, Felicity Rowe.

Felicity was the ex-girlfriend of Castle Knoll Detective Rowan Crane, who Annie has worked with to solve murders. Felicity also was suspected of having stolen money from the Crane family. And the odder thing is Annie’s late great-aunt Frances wrote in her journal about a similar murder that happened to her friend, Vera Huntington. Dr. Alastair Huntington, Vera’s husband who was a heart surgeon, was convicted of her murder.

Annie’s father, Sam Arlington, left her mother when Annie was a baby, after losing money in a Ponzi scheme. When Laura refuses to talk to Annie about Felicity, Annie calls Sam to find out what information she and Rowan can get from him.

This is the third book in the cozy mystery series. You don’t have to read the others in the series to follow the plot. The two timelines are woven together well and the art angle adds to the story.

I rate it four out of five stars.

This is the sixth novel in the series in which Anthony Horowitz features himself as a fictionalized Watson to former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne’s Sherlock Holmes.

It is the third week of production on the film adaptation of “The Word is Murder,” the first book. They are filming in Hastings, on the south coast of England. Actor David Caine is playing Hawthorne and Ralph Seymour is playing Horowitz. Cy Truman is the director and Shanika Harris is the screenwriter.

Izzy Mays, a production runner, goes onto the set and screams that Caine has been stabbed. He is dead.

It seems that everyone on the set had a motive to kill him. Caine had just fired Izzy Mays. He had fallen out with Cy Truman, slept with Shanika Harris, humiliated Ralph Seymour and dropped James Auburn as his agent days before he was about to sign a multimillion-dollar deal to appear in the next Spider-Man movie.

Detective Superintendent Sarah Milnes and Detective Constable Joe Fuller are investigating. Hawthorne is called in as a consultant although he is no longer with the police. He calls Horowitz and they go to Hastings.

But what if Caine’s murderer made a mistake? It’s Hawthorne’s name on the trailer where Caine was killed because the producers list actors by the characters they are playing. Maybe he was the intended target. Could it be linked to his first case as a private investigator?

This has good dialogue and a great plot, with red herrings mixed in with logic. I did guess the older part of the mystery, but not the newer one. You almost have to feel sorry for the character of Horowitz as he doesn’t figure out what is happening until Hawthorne tells him. We get some insight to Hawthorne’s background, which is complex. Readers who have followed the series and those who haven’t will enjoy this one.

I rate it five out of five stars.

In 1978, two tenements on Livonia Avenue in Brownsville burn to the ground, killing one resident and displacing dozens of others. Survivors are convinced that Mr. Wong set the fire.

Community organizer Lina Rodriguez Armstrong was also displaced by that fire. She spends years fighting for the residents’ rights.

The novel follows four generations of the Wong family, starting with immigrant Koon Lai. It is his great-granddaughter, Sadie, a journalist, who returns to Brownsville years later to try to unravel the mystery of what really happened.

The story skips around in timeline and points of view, making it difficult to follow. In addition to the non-linear timeline, the multiple characters aren’t well developed and I didn’t connect with them. Others may like this one, but I didn’t.

I rate it three out of five stars. a review.

In the first novel in this series, “Nash Falls,” Walter Nash is approached by the FBI. They want him to become their inside man to bring down a criminal money laundering and drug trafficking organization headed by Victoria Steers.

As “Hope Rises” begins, Walter is on Steers’ private jet, along with Rhett Temple, CEO of Sybaritic Investments and Lynn Ryder, who works for Steers. Walter is using the alias of Dillon Hope and is posing as Temple’s bodyguard.

They are going to Hong Kong to meet with Steers, who wants them to get her mother, Masuyo, out of a Myanmar prison. When they succeed, Steers demands that Walter stay on as her bodyguard.

This is an intense, fast-moving escapist thriller. While the plot is riveting and the book is difficult to put down, it is also violent and implausible. If you go with the flow and not expect a totally rational story, you’ll enjoy it. I didn’t like it as much as I liked “Nash Falls,” but it is a engrossing sequel.

I rate it four out of five stars.

Carralon Ridge, a once vibrant village in rural New South Wales, is now almost abandoned. Only a few residents remain since the Lentzer mining company bought most of the residents out.

Sam Crowley loved Carralon Ridge. He was working on his thesis, an oral history of the town. On his 21st birthday, during a break from college, he drove a rental car there, parked the car, got out and vanished. That was five years ago.

Sam’s parents have since separated. His mother, Rowena, returns to Carralon Ridge from Sydney to be with her estranged husband, Griffith, and their daughter, Della, on the anniversary of Sam’s disappearance. Before Sam disappeared Griffith’s cousin, Warren, killed himself.

Ro is a doctor. Griff is employed by Lentzer as the community fire safety officer. As Ro and Della talk to others, Ro begins to suspect that something important was overlooked in Sam’s case. People are protecting family secrets.

The truth of what happened to Sam and why it happened is shocking. This is expertly plotted. The descriptions of the town are vivid; you feel the heat of the weather, the disruption of community and the desperation of the people who stayed behind.

I rate it five out of five stars.

It is 1913. London junior attorney Daniel Pitt must step in for his friend, fellow attorney Toby Kitteridge, whose parents have been brutally attacked in rural Ipswich. Toby's mother, Delia, is dead and his father, Justin, a village vicar, is barely alive.

With Toby returning to the family home in rural Ipswich, Daniel remains in London to defend Peter Ward, on trial for the sexual assault and murder of a young woman, Alexandra Stanton.

Toby has a younger sister, Alberta, who is married to Esmond Walsh. The police believe that the vicar shot his wife, then tried to kill himself. Daniel’s wife, Miriam fford Croft, is a pathologist. Toby had asked Miriam to rerun tests on Alexandra’s body. Evelyn Hall, Miriam’s mentor, is still recovering from an earlier attack. Daniel asks Miriam to perform an autopsy on Delia.

When Miriam returns to London, she and Eve find that other pathologists have purposefully omitted information from several autopsy reports. They wonder what could be behind that ethical violation.

Anne Perry died in 2023. She had written half of this book. Her friend, Victoria Zackheim, an author, finished it. It’s sad to know that I’ve read my last Anne Perry novel. Her characters were always strong, although plots were often easy to figure out.

I rate it four out of five stars.

London, Nov. 23, 1816. Bayard Wilcox is passed out drunk. When he comes to, he finds himself outside, on the ground at Primrose Hill. He was with his friend, Marcus Toole, and left to get more firewood before he passed out.

The young men were at Primrose Hill because of the rumored Druid ceremonies. Wilcox heads towards the campfire and realizes there is a body that was set on fire. It’s Toole. Wilcox races to his grandfather’s house because he hopes his uncle, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, will be there. He’s correct. Sebastian, a former calvary captain, has done some private investigations.

Toole was the son of Sir Samuel Toole, who is a landowner and a member of Parliment. Wilcox tells them of his friend’s murder and reminds them that it’s only two weeks since his other friend, Gilbert Keebles, was fatally stabbed.

Sebastian’s wife, Hero, tells him that Keebles’ mother was good friends with her mother, so she can find out more about his death. Phineas Upcott, a friend of Toole’s, asks Sebastian to investigate. As he does, Sebastian learns that Bayard may not be as innocent as he pretends.

The writing is very good and the history was well-researched. The characters are true to life. The mystery is complicated.

I rate it four out of five stars.

Eddie Wilkens is a divorced workaholic house painter in Portland. He is thoughtful and rarely gets angry.

A woman and her two sons move in next door with her frail and aging mother. Russell is eight and is terrified of his brother Curtis, 15. They moved into the grandmother’s house beside Eddie’s after Curtis’ girlfriend, Yvette, got pregnant. They can’t afford child support.

As their mother struggles to keep the family together and the grandmother’s health declines, they find themselves unable to protect Russell and themselves from Curtis’s cruelty. While Russell’s home life disintegrates he begins waiting in Eddie’s backyard for him to home from work. In return, Russell gives Eddie a reason to carry on.

The themes are friendship and found family. While many people will enjoy this novel, I found it too depressing.

I rate it three out of five stars.

Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper lives in the remote Irish village of Arknakelty and is engaged to Lena Dunne. The two of them help Trey Reedy, a teenager who lives with Cal part time.

After a soccer match one day, Lena drops Trey off at Cal’s house and drives home. She finds Rachel Holohan sitting on her doorstep. She wants Lena to look at her cat because the vet’s office is closed.

Early the next morning, Cal’s phone rings. Rachel Holohan has disappeared. She was about to be engaged to Eugene Moynihan, the son of the local big shot, Tommy Moynihan. Tommy has been buying up land, but nobody knows why. He owns a meat processing plant that employs a lot of local men.

Some of the searchers find Rachel’s body in the river. In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the town in two. Lena’s sister, Noreen, who owns the general store, pushes her to visit Rachel’s mother and wants her to push Cal into contacting police for information. People are upset about Rachel’s death and some blame the Moynihans. When they realize what’s behind her death, people rise up.

The characters are really true and the setting is beautifully written. While the plot moves slower than French’s Dublin Murder Squad series, this plot is complex and well-drawn. There are twists and turns as the story develops with a surprise towards the end. This is the third in the Cal Hooper series.

I rate it five out of five stars.

It is July of 1921. Chief Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, who was recently promoted to that post, is sent to the coast of Northumberland, just across the border from Scotland. A body has washed up on shore.

Because of his ability to move in the highest social and political circles, Rutledge has been assigned to go. Pilgrims come to visit the home of Saints Cuthbert and Aiden—the founders of Christianity in England—located on the “Holy Island” of Lindisfarne, accessible by a causeway at low tide. The government and the Church of England are concerned about protecting both the reputation of the Church and the sacred sites.

Rutledge suffers from shell shock and survivor’s guilt. The voice of Corporal Hamish MacLeod has been in his head since 1916 and the Battle of Somme. The murdered man was Oswin Dunn, who lived in Beadston where he was a boat pilot and chart maker. When Rutledge arrives at Dunn’s house, he finds that it was ransacked. People didn’t like Dunn because they thought he was sympathetic to Germans.

Constable Jack Carr is the officer in Dunn’s home village. The constabulary in the process of being consolidated to form a countywide police force, with local militias still wielding a great deal of power. Local people don’t like outsiders. Then there’s another murder.

Charles Todd’s novels are intriguing and intricately-woven stories. There is a strong sense of place. While I figured out why Oswin Dunn was killed, the identity of the murderer came as a surprise. While Rutledge still has PTSD, he is improving and is connecting more with people. This is the 25th in the series and can be read without first reading the others.

I rate it four out of five stars.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for a review.

Janey Devine, 12, lives with her grandmother, Maggie, in the tight-knit community of Possilpark, Glasgow, Scotland. It is 1979. She walks her grandmother’s dog along an unused railroad track one day and comes across the murdered body of Samantha Watson. Samantha was the daughter of Billy Watson, a crime boss.

Janey insists she doesn’t remember any details of that morning. The police keep questioning her because they think she knows more than she is telling. They are right: there is something she knows that she isn’t ready to talk about. Janey is traumatized and can’t be sure what she has seen. Watson also pressures Janey for answers.

This is told in alternate chapters through the voices of Maggie and Janey. The warm relationship between Janey and Maggie, her grandmother, is the heart of the novel as they both cope with the aftermath of the discovery. Janey’s parents and sister were killed in an explosion and Maggie is struggling with poverty.

The novel is written in a heavy Glaswegian dialect, which will be difficult for some readers. The setting is vivid and the murder itself is secondary to the lives of the main characters. The ending is ambiguous. While some will like this novel, I struggled with it.

I rate it three out of five stars.

Maddie McGowan lives on a 40-acre sheep farm in the Wisconsin countryside. In addition to training sheepdogs, she has a practice treating dogs with behavioral problems. Maddie moved to Wisconsin from New Mexico after divorcing her abusive husband.

She is at a sheepdog trial outside Portage, Wisconsin, where her friend and mentor, George Hughes, is about to run his dog, Jess. Maddie’s border collie, Jack, is Jess’s brother. George whispers “away to me,” the signal for Jess to run counterclockwise around to the back of the flock.

As Jess works the flock, a rifle is fired from the woods and George is killed. Who would be shooting out of season and near a sheepdog trial? George was co-owner of the H&H Working Dog Center along with Thomas Hutch. Hutch trains dogs for law enforcement.

Soon after the funeral, the director of an animal shelter calls Maddie. A German Shepherd that they are calling Cisco was found injured alongside a highway. He is too aggressive for the shelter staff to help. They can’t get him to eat or drink. Maddie decides to foster him. Then Cisco is stolen from her house.

It is well written, but it is more of a cozy mystery than a traditional one. The identity of the murderer is a surprise. The dog training is fascinating.

Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D., is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, and is the bestselling author of “The Other End of the Leash” and “The Education of Will.”

I rate it four out of five stars.