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An Edie Kiglatuk Mystery

Edie still hasn’t fully recovered from the loss of her ex stepson. As such, it is suggested that she spend the summer away from Autisaq. Her friend Derek Palliser has helped set her up with a place to stay in Kuujuaq while she takes on a summer teaching position in the local school. Then one of her students goes missing and is later discovered having been brutally murdered. The townsfolks immediately turn to the nearby military base for a scapegoat and tension is beginning to run high. Edie has no desire to get caught up in yet another investigation but Kuujuaq is grossly unequipped to deal with such a case. The ME and forensics folks are tied up elsewhere and Derek needs all the help he can get if he’s to do the girl’s case justice.

This third release in the Edie Kiglatuk series returns readers to the Canadian Arctic, this time during the literally endless days of summer. It’s an insular and harsh landscape, one that comes through quite clearly in McGrath’s prose.

While the main focus of the book is the murder there is a subplot concerning the military – both past and present. It’s actually a quite fascinating subplot that McGrath weaves quite well into the main story.

This latest is not without issue: the pacing is a bit off and there are hangups that prevent it from being a smooth and quick read. Overall, though, this is a satisfying addition to the series as a whole.

8/14 Becky Lejeune

THE BONE SEEKER by M.J. McGrath. Viking Adult (July 24, 2014). ISBN 978-0670785803. 352p.

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Edie Kiglatuk Mystery Series #2

When Edie agreed to be part of her ex-husband’s Iditarod team, she never expected to become embroiled in another murder mystery. And yet, when Edie stumbles across the body of a baby boy buried in the snow she can’t help but get involved.

Local investigators are convinced the person responsible is part of a nearby religious group called the Old Believers. The group has long garnered criticism and the fact that the body is found on land owned by the group doesn’t help. Neither does the fact that Edie witnessed two of the Old Believers passing by just moments before making her discovery.

To Edie’s eye, however, the infant had been in place and undisturbed for quite some time and the Old Believers seem to be too easy a scapegoat. Unfortunately for the Old Believers, the discovery of the body coincides with the current governor’s race and the local hopeful is set on having this case solved as quickly as possible.

This is the second installment in M. J. McGrath’s Edie Kiglatuk series – a mystery series with a half Inuit lead. This is something of a unique premise for a series and I thought McGrath handled it really well. Edie seems authentic in terms of heritage and viewpoints. There’s enough cultural reference to set the tone for her and the Alaskan setting quite nicely, too.

I should note that this was my introduction to Edie and her story and while there are plenty of mentions of the case that is the focus of the first book I never felt lost or confused. The Boy in the Snow is a fair jumping off point for anyone new to the series and a great introduction to Edie.

8/14 Becky Lejeune

THE BOY IN THE SNOW by M. J. McGrath. Penguin Books; Reprint edition (October 29, 2013). ISBN 978-0143124146. 400p.

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Rural Montana’s frozen tundra is the setting for this literary mystery debut. Eighteen-year-old Grace is home alone after recuperating from a heart transplant when she sees a man stab a woman on the fringes of the property behind her home, then take off.

Despite the cold, she runs out the back door to try and help. She is shocked to find the victim is the mother who abandoned her eleven years earlier, but she is too late to help. Detective Macy Greeley is assigned the case as she’s been tracking the victim in connection with a sex slavery ring. But Collier, Montana is a small town full of evil secrets and no one is talking, least of all Grace.

Greeley becomes convinced that Grace knows a lot more than she’s telling, but she has to ferret out the information herself while dealing with a pregnancy that’s the result of a liaison with her married boss. The icy winter itself becomes almost another character in this dark, brooding whodunit filled with sharp twists and idiosyncratic characters. This debut should appeal to fans of C.J. Box and Nevada Barr.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

BONE DUST WHITE by Karin Salvalaggio. Minotaur Books (May 13, 2014). ISBN 978-1250046185. 304p.

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A Conway Sax Mystery (Book 4)

Conway Sax is back and as hard headed as ever. A recovering drug addict and alcoholic, Sax is a member of the Barnburners, a hard-core Alcohol Anonymous splinter group.

When one of the members, eighty-two-year-old Eudora Spoon, asks Sax to bring her son Kenny home so she can see him one last time before the cancer takes her, he agrees and heads out to find the washed up TV star being held hostage. Sax gets him home but has some Mexican drug lords hot on his trail.

Eudora’s other son, Harmon, is the local police chief, and sibling rivalry rears its ugly head. Sax’s girlfriend is still out of the picture so he hooks up with Tricia, Harmon’s estranged wife, which complicates things even further.

Amazingly, as gritty and violent as Sax is, he is also endearing, a difficult feat to pull off but Ufelder does it brilliantly. Lots of action and violence along with a dash of humor are the hallmarks of this series, and this latest entry does not disappoint. The twists and turns run wildly through this story right up to the surprising ending. Ufelder, like Elmore Leonard, exemplifies contemporary noir.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

5/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

WOVERINE BROS. FREIGHT & STORAGE by Steve Ufelder. Minotaur Books (May 6, 2014). ISBN 978-1250028105. 320p.

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Investigative reporter Maxine Revere takes on cold cases both in print and on her cable TV show. In this introduction to the series, Max goes home to Atherton, California, a wealthy enclave outside of San Francisco.

Kevin, Lindy, and Max were best friends all through school until their senior year when Lindy was murdered, and Kevin was accused but not convicted by the hung jury. Max stood by Kevin but later found out he had lied to her.

Upon her return home, a new murder is committed, and Max finds herself looking into a couple of old mysteries and a new one. She also has to deal with her large, wealthy family; her former friends; and all their egos and infighting.

Working with ex-special forces turned detective Nick Santini, in charge of the homicide, Max finds that she shares a work ethic and a strong mutual attraction with the young, good-looking, and smart Nick. But Max is able to go outside the law on occasion, and Nick finds her reckless streak both maddening and endearing. Fireworks erupt on more than one occasion, and it seems like the beginning of an interesting relationship and a terrific new series. Sandra Brown and Hank Phillippi Ryan fans will feel right at home.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

4/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

NOTORIOUS by Allison Brennan. Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (March 25, 2014). ISBN 978-1250035059. 336p.

This legal thriller is told from the unique perspective of the Federal court judge presiding over the first death penalty case in Massachusetts in more than fifty years. The moral story here is highlighted by an occasional chapter dedicated to the telling of a true story of an 1806 hanging that was reversed two hundred years later.

A drive by shooting is at the root of the present day case; a Hispanic drug dealer and an innocent bystander are killed, and a sharp cop ends up nabbing the getaway driver who gives up a name, Moon Hudson, as the shooter. Moon is a family man, married with a baby, but also has a past that the jury will never hear about. The state’s case hinges on the word of a gangbanger who has agreed to testify in exchange for a lighter sentence, and Moon’s life hangs in the balance.

The death penalty case is compelling but the characters are not fully developed, leaving a bit of an emotional void. Richard North Patterson tackled a similar subject in Conviction with considerably more passion, but perhaps that is the impartiality of the judge as storyteller here.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

4/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE HANGING JUDGE by Michael Ponsor. Open Road Media E-riginal (December 3, 2013). ISBN 978-1480441941. 376p.

Maggie Brown knew her affair with the much younger Nadal Brown was a mistake, and she broke it off but several years later she runs into him, and he is convinced her son Matt is his son.

That mistake is at the heart of this tragedy; Maggie is murdered, her son calls the police and he is moved into the foster care system. But Detective Richard Christie has a better idea; friends of his have been trying to adopt and he thinks the boy would be a good fit for them. The agency agrees, and the confused young boy finds himself in a new home. But Nadal is determined to get his son, and while Christie is working his department hard to find the killer, he also finds the boy’s biological father – a sperm donor.

There are a lot of players here but the story moves along rapidly, and while the child in jeopardy situation is a familiar one, the suspense keeps building as the fate of the boy hangs in the balance. Should appeal to fans of Mary Higgins Clark and Kate White.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

2/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

A MEASURE OF BLOOD by Kathleen George. MysteriousPress.com/Open Road (January 14, 2014). ISBN 978-1480445604. 400p.

The protagonists, Elizabeth Pepperhawk and Avivah Rosen, are women who have served in Vietnam, as Wildwind herself did.

In Wildwind’s second mystery, First Murder in Advent (set in 1972), Army nurse Pepperhawk is between assignments when she receives a call from Benny Kirkpatrick, ex-Special Forces first sergeant. Their friend Avivah is in trouble, and with Benny and Avivah’s friend, has sought refuge in a convent in the mountains of North Carolina.

When Pepper goes to help, she finds military intelligence officer Darby Baxter, her on-again, off-again love interest, with three other men. What follows are days without electricity in a mostly empty convent, in a snowstorm.

Avivah, Pepper, Darby and Benny, along with a few nuns and some members of a paramilitary think tank, struggle to survive the cold amidst murder, secret passageways and lost wills–delicious reading with tangling sub-plots. Too bad this series didn’t get more attention as the stories are quite good.

4/14 Jack Quick

FIRST MURDER IN ADVENT by Sharon Wildwind. Five Star (ME) (October 2006). ISBN 978-1594145278. 323p.