Second Forensics Mystery from Sara E. Johnson, THE BONES REMEMBER (New Zealand)

Ready for some armchair travel with a hint of JAWS? Sara E. Johnson provides the ride in her second New Zealand-set Alexa Glock Forensics Mystery, THE BONES REMEMBER. Once you discover, with this dauntless forensic investigator, the wilds of Stewart Island, you'll want more pages. And the shark attacks and treachery along the way will keep the pages turning.

Never heard of Stewart Island? It's not fictional -- it's the third largest land mass making up New Zealand, and it's challenging to get to and very, very cold even in summer. On the wild ferry ride, Glock's already coming to grips with the local controversy over "cage diving," a way to see sharks close up. It's not just the presence of tourists -- the 300-plus full-time locals are dependent on their money, anyway -- but the sharks get teased onto coming to the cages, through baiting that's just enough to leave them hungry, and some of the locals feel the sharks then become more dangerous for local divers and anglers.

Alexa is on assignment, her first time being sent a substantial distance by the Forensic Service Center in Auckland where she's managed to find work. An expert in the forensics of teeth, she'll have a chance to extend her experience to shark bites and related murders, starting with a body some distance into the extensive Department of Conservation lands. Is the death hunting related? Animal caused? The body's on a pile of kelp, and at first glance looks like a mutilated seal. Alexa asks the question pertinent to her examination:

"How much time do we have with the tide?"

 "Fifteen, twenty minutes."

The examination would need to be quick. Cause and time of death were her main goals. Massive tissue and blood loss, from the looks of it, for cause, and time of death? She looked for a watch on the victim's wrist. There was only one wrist left, and no watch—rarely was TOD that simple. Body temperature may have been influenced by water temperature. She gently lifted the man's right arm, noting rigor mortis was presnt. The man had been dead anywhere from six to forty-eight hours. It was a start, but she wondered how much of that time he'd been immerse or beached. Cold water would delay rigor mortis, so she guessed he had been beached for at least six hours. Probably washed up during the night.

She backed up and looked around, at the beach, at the bystanders watching, at the expanse of Pacific hiding the monster responsible for this carnage. She photographed the body from different angles. "Sketch the scene, please," she told Constable Kopae, who had joined them. A sketch would provide depth of field that photos couldn't.

 Wallace interrupted. "Can you tell if the bloke was Maori?"

That's an important question, but the answer will have to wait—pretty rough on the families waiting in the village for word of who this is. Meanwhile, a shark expert with his own show has arrived on the island, with his own agenda. And a different way of seeing things.

Duffy came close. "Mother of God." Against the white sheet, the plundered eye socket gaped like violent art. "The shark clamped the head in his jaws," Duffy said his voice so close Alexa could feel warm puffs. "It's called the killing bite. Then comes the lateral head-shake, which ruptures the neck. It's broken, yeah?'

She reached her hands under the paper cover and gently manipulated the spinal cord. Rag doll snapped, the image of a shark with a man's head clamped in its jaws, body whipping back and forth, flashed in her mind. The floor undulated. She grabbed the exam bed to keep from crumpling.

Johnson's abundant details of forensics, crime investigation, and New Zealand itself make her crime writing authoritative and intriguing. She leavens this with quick twists of plot and suspects, and a minor thread of romance, as Alexa ponders whether she wants a romantic connection with Detective Inspector Bruce Horne (see the first book in this series, Molten Mud Murder). When Horne takes over her island investigation, it's just in time to keep her from seriously overreaching her position. And that too is a pleasure -- that the many mistakes of amateur sleuths are replaced in Johnson's crime novels by expertise, eagerness, and racing forward.

Johnson steps carefully around potential issues of cultural appropriation; it would take the expert eye, of course, of a Maori reader to say whether she has fully avoided it, but casual readers will probably be comfortable with the distance she has selected for this New Zealand exploration.

The series is published by Poisoned Pen Press, a Sourcebooks imprint; add it to the TBR stack for enjoyable reading with a less common setting and a mostly sensible sleuth.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Who's Luring Forensic Archaeologist Ruth Galloway? THE LANTERN MEN, by Elly Griffiths

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“Bringing the traditional British mystery up to date with this strong and driven sleuth—not a true amateur sleuth, but an active partner with the official investigation—is the best part of reading this ongoing series from Elly Griffiths.”

A forensic archaeologist with a rising career, Ruth Galloway’s made a major life change as The Lantern Men opens: Forsaking her beloved seamarsh home and the Norfolk university where she’s been mostly blocked from advancement, she’s taken a teaching slot in Cambridge. And with her daughter, she’s moved in at last with Frank, an American who loves her deeply and, she knows, wants to marry her if she’ll just consent.

But despite the rise in academic prestige, Ruth’s aware that she’s putting great strain on her heart: not just leaving the coast, but also walking away from Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, father of her nine-year-old daughter, but securely married and also a new father to a son with his wife. Though Ruth’s aware that she can’t win her daughter’s dad as her own partner under the circumstances, that doesn’t erase the powerful bond that Nelson and Ruth share.

But when Ivor March, a serial murderer that Nelson and Ruth have always felt was holding back on some of his kills, pulls them together, there are frightening red flags, as Nelson reveals the latest twist:

“‘He said that he was willing to tell me where the other two bodies are buried.’

‘My God. That’s amazing.’

‘Yes. I couldn’t believe it. But he had a proviso. He always does. He can’t resist playing games. … He wants you to excavate them. … He won’t tell us where to look unless you do the digging. You don’t have to agree though.’

Ruth stands frozen with her hand on the car door. Ivor March wants her to be involved in the case. A serial killer not only knows her name but is requesting her assistance. Should she refuse? This issn’t her case, after all. She thinks of Frank’s words last night. ‘You’ve got a new team now.’ But, of course, deep down, she wants to do it. She wants to be the one to find the bodies.”

Frighteningly, the killer demands to meet Ruth first, and she won’t refuse: First, she’s eager to get back to the kind of in-ground exploration that engages all her knowledge. And second, it will mean working with Nelson, much better than not seeing him at all.

Yet the proclaimed murderer, Ivor March, is a master psychological manipulator. It’s clear he, like the groupies who adore him, savors being able to tug Ruth’s strings. He even somehow knows about Nelson and their shared daughter—which immediately means Ruth needs to worry about her child’s safety.

The book’s title comes from a myth of mysterious figures of the past, or perhaps even of the spirit realm, who light lanterns at night along the paths through the fens, nearby quicksand and pools notwithstanding, and lure unwary travelers to gruesome death in the muck and mire. March’s own past, as Ruth and Nelson probe from opposite directions, links up with a manipulative group of mingled sociopaths and do-gooders—who can be sure which ones are which?—who’ve trolled the region for women in trouble.

Griffiths is a master storyteller, with two vivid mystery series underway. This is the more rapidly paced of the two (the other is set a half century earlier), and the unavoidable strands of Ruth’s passion—her work, her child, her lovers—act as potent forces while March’s apparently ongoing crime spree nets them all.

Series followers will want to know whether Cathbad, Ruth’s druidic ally, is involved again. Yes, but not deeply this time. Still, the investigative “team” may reunite as needed, as Ivor March’s own “helpers” multiply and risk rises. Suddenly, everything’s breakable, and lives, careers, and love are at stake.

Bringing the traditional British mystery up to date with this strong and driven sleuth—not a true amateur sleuth, but an active partner with the official investigation—is the best part of reading this ongoing series from Elly Griffiths. And it looks like there’s plenty of room for more.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Brief Mention: Nonfiction for Crime Buffs (by Tom McCarthy, Bruce Goldfarb, Billy Jensen)

Our review platform is meant for ardent collectors of mysteries and crime fiction, as we ourselves have been for decades. That said, now and then a publisher or publicity person sends along a work of nonfiction related to crime. We generally just pass them along to someone who needs them (research! research!). Here are three that lingered in the office for a while and are now headed out to further readers ... you might want to order one or more of them for your reference shelf. Here's why:

1. You love caper mysteries. Maybe you grew up with Donald Westlake (or discovered him later in life) and love the humorous twist. Most of all, though, you appreciate a tale of a good heist. Your recent "likes" may include Tim Hallinan's Junior Bender series, or the San Juan Islands capers written by Bethany Maines, or some of the Colin Cotterill series and an occasional treasure from David Carkeet. Or, of course, you're still hoping someone will reveal what happened to the art stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum? Nope, sorry, that's not in THE GREATEST HEIST STORIES EVER TOLD, edited by Tom McCarthy and published by Lyons Press in 2019. But DB Cooper is in here! So are eight other "compelling and true stories of brilliant plans, guile, and nerves of steel," as the editor describes the selections. "Planning is everything, and carrying out those plans is no easy task ... benefits for these clever thieves were abundant—loads of money and the freedom to do whatever they wanted with it. If only for a short time."

2. You're obsessed with how the forensics work out. Did you mark your calendar for the recent TV miniseries featuring Lincoln Rhyme hunting for the Bone Collector? Shelve every book by Patricia Cornwell next to your bed, until her later titles starting making you feel too ill or invaded your sleep with overly realistic nightmares? Do you pick apart a Kathy Reichs or even an Archer Mayor mystery, probing whether a death investigator or coroner would really miss that particular hint? Frankly, you need the back story, which you'll find in 18 TINY DEATHS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF FRANCES GLESSNER LEE AND THE INVENTION OF MODERN FORENSICS (Sourcebooks, 2020). Bruce Goldfarb whips the details of this woman's life and classrooms into a well-laid-out tale of scientific investigation. It puts the modern science into perspective and shows how hard it can be to move things forward ... especially as a grandmother without a college degree. The reading's a bit slow, but there are lots of golden nuggets.

3. You can't resist those late-night true-crime shows on TV; you drive extra slowly past any local murder site; you wonder whether the detectives would let you offer your insight, based on how clever or intuitive you are. Is that you? Or would you rather get the true story of someone this really applied to, and how he went from journalism to solving mysteries himself ... that's Billy Jensen, who relates his own engagement in crimesolving in CHASE DARKNESS WITH ME (Sourcebooks again, 2019). This is solidly first-person narrative, and doesn't pretend to be balanced. But my goodness, is it ever a page-turner! If you can put up with Billy talking entirely about himself and his perceptions, grab this for your shelf -- or give a copy to a friend who fits the bill.

Good luck! And don't use these as how-to books, please. There are no guarantees of success in such a field ...

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Forensics and Detection, 1768 Style, in SAVAGE LIBERTY from Eliot Pattison

Available this week, the newest "Mystery of Revolutionary America" is the fifth in Eliot Pattison's series that was originally called the Bone Rattler books, after the first title in it. An international attorney (still practicing) and master of three vastly different series with three entirely separate cultures -- the other two are Chinese-occupied Tibet, and a post-apocalyptic version of a nuclear frontier -- Pattison crafts an immersion experience of hardships, crime, investigation, and dramatic changes. And SAVAGE LIBERTY perches at a fierce point in history, as colonists with diverse background and motives began to realize that rejecting the British king's power over them could be possible.

Most compelling in Pattison's books are his wounded heroes: here, the Scottish medically trained Duncan McCallum, bound under a punitive indenture contract that prevents him from committing to the love of his life, Sarah Ramsey. Ramsey is herself an outrageous figure for the time, trying to craft a peaceable community of Judeo-Christians, frontier folk, and Native Americans at the edge of the East Coast's strip of "civilization." But by binding McCallum for long-ago "criminality" and a few recent misjudgments, Ramsey's father effectively prevents the couple from a balanced and equal relationship.

This is part of McCallum's motive for taking off into the wilderness in search of a rogue collaboration of British and Abenaki warmongers -- they've pushed his bonding further and put a bounty on his head. But as always in Pattison's books, the emotional depth comes with McCallum's identification with members of a threatened culture: in this case, the Native Americans being brutally evicted from their lands. One of the most moving scenes in the book involves McCallum witnessing a heartbreaking farewell to the trees and forest, by his Nipmuc friend and ally, Conawago. Pattison's strongly drawn parallel of the outlawed Scottish Highland clans and the Native American tribes provides McCallum with some of his passion for the Nipmuc and his allies. Yet, as in Pattison's Tibet series, it's the underlying spiritual commitment that most deeply connects these men.

McCallum's usual care in decision making goes off track in SAVAGE LIBERTY. With the unsettling of his belief in the king's right to rule the colonies also comes an unsettling of some of his loyalties and convictions. And his beloved isn't pleased, telling him, "Stealing muskets from the king! Bribing army guards. This is how you will prove yourself innocent of treason! I beg you, Duncan, leave this behind before it is too late."

But Duncan McCallum is forming a new commitment, to the Sons of Liberty, a group that's clearly fomenting revolution. It's troubling him:

He lay on a comforter beside Sarah's bed, listening to the slow, quiet breathing of Sarah and Will, recalling prior conversations in Boston. The arguments with the king would never come to violence, Hancock and Sam Adams always insisted. King George would soon recognize that the inhabitants of his most valuable colonies had to be given the same respect as Englishmen in the home country, and all would then rally around the monarch. But the terrible visions of the innkeeper's dying wife now visited him, vivid images of ill-trained colonists being massacred by British regulars, the massed bullets of their. Brown Besses mowing down farmers and shopkeepers like the blade of a bloody scythe. Whenever a colonist fell, an Abenaki materialized to rip away his scalp.

Pattison's choice of Abenaki for the most dangerous criminal in this book (in a revenge motif based on the massacre of the St. Francis group of the tribe) disturbed me, as it seemed a choice that could tar an entire group of people with a label of irrational and uncontained violence. I kept pausing to check details, finding that small parts that rubbed me wrong -- scalping, displays of scalps -- had ample historical backup, but still ill at ease. I also missed the more deliberate investigative direction of earlier titles in the series.

That said, Pattison does a masterful job of keeping his red herrings afloat and his competing rationales for crime and violence well sorted out. Most vitally, he illustrates the slow and irreversible turn from an angry but heartfelt loyalty to the monarch, toward the possibility of independence. I look forward to how he'll carry Duncan McCallum into the very forces of liberty in the next book of the series. And, of course, to how this deep-probing author will illustrate the ongoing death of tribal occupation of the new America. "Savage" liberty, indeed.

Publication is by Counterpoint, and the book's release date is May 22.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

More Summer Reading, British "Traditional" Mystery with Archaeology, THE CHALK PIT, Elly Griffiths

British author Elly Griffiths writes two distinctive mystery series, one set "today" in and around Norwich, England, rich with archaeology and very British themes, and the other involving stage magic and illusion plus murder, circa 1950. I'm a fan of both.

Just released this week in the US is the newest in her Ruth Galloway mystery series, featuring a forensic archaeologist who's also a single parent in a very complicated network of university politics, local police, and the remnants of England's past -- which in Ruth's case includes a significant friendship with a modern-day Druid. No fancy paranormal side effects in here, unless you count the occasional strong intuition that Ruth and her friends may experience. Instead, THE CHALK PIT provides the perfect summer read: a strong traditional mystery with powerful motives (money and power!), and heart-stirring secondary plotting among the homeless in Norwich.

This time Ruth's investigating some human bones that turned up in an old tunnel, part of an excavation for a future restaurant-and-event locale, where the money at stake pushed the agenda. Hurry up and declare the bones insignificant remains of some medieval resident (definitely not royal) and get them out of the way. Ruth's willing ... but, as she settles to discussing them with DCI Nelson, head of the Norwich police team and a mostly former flame of Ruth's, her doubts take shape:

"Anyway, it's likely that the bones are medieval or even older. There's no flesh on them and they look very clean. It's just ..."

"What is it, Ruth? I know there's something you're not telling me."

"It might be nothing. But one of the long bones was broken in the middle and there were cut marks on it. And the bones were so clean, almost shiny. It reminded me of something that I've read about. Pot polish."

"Pot polish? Sounds like something my granny would do."

"I doubt it. It's when bones are boiled soon after death. The polish comes from the contact with a roughly made cooking vessel."

"Jesus wept." Nelson chokes on his last crumb of cake. "Are you saying these bones were in a cooking pot?"

While Ruth keeps that aspect as quiet as possible, she's getting crowded by fellow academics who want to push into the underground labyrinth with her, and some have motives that worry her. Meanwhile, Nelson's team, especially DS Judy Johnson, has another reason for interest in those old tunnels that were once part of the region's chalk-mining industry: Could homeless people in the area become crime victims of someone living "underground" and kidnapping them, or worse?

Griffiths keeps the twists spinning, enlivened by Ruth Galloway's confused "love life" that tugs her in as many directions as her work does. Lively storytelling, quick surprises, and a lot at stake make the book a very good vacation from ordinary daily life -- and from the lawnmower and garden!

This is the ninth in the series, and it lacks the tang of some of the earlier titles when Ruth's Druid friend Cathbad saw more action. There's no need to read the others first -- Griffiths is a pro in terms of setting the scene in a sequel by now -- but for the best enjoyment, I'd recommend splurging for the summer reading pile and picking up the earlier titles in softcover (The Crossing Places, The Janus Stone, The House at Sea's End, A Room Full of Bones, A Dying Fall, The Outcast Dead, The Ghost Fields, The Woman in Blue). FYI, the earlier titles veer a bit more toward the dark and dangerous side than THE CHALK PIT does. (It's all about taste, isn't it?)

Great that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has brought this series across the Atlantic.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Prime British Crime Fiction from Elly Griffiths: THE WOMAN IN BLUE, Ruth Galloway #8

The first book in the Ruth Galloway crime fiction series, The Crossing Places, won the Mary Higgins Clark award for 2011 -- and of course, the award took place some time after the book hit the stores. Now in 2016, author Elly Griffiths presents the eighth in the impressive sequence: THE WOMAN IN BLUE.

This series features forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway, a professional at university level who still has to fight for her career, against the sexist and crass assumptions of people like her boss. Single parenting in a community that's gradually becoming aware of her daughter's father -- married and unavailable -- Ruth juggles child care and teaching and investigation, in a jumble that feels all too familiar for modern life: nothing's easy, there's never enough time, and all of it matters intensely.

As THE WOMAN IN BLUE opens, one of the most appealing of Ruth's friends, Cathbad, himself a parent and also a modern-day British druid, witnesses a "woman in blue" (how can I not think of T. S. Eliot's vision in blue, "in Mary's color") standing in an ancient Christian cemetery. "As Cathbad approaches, she looks at him, and her face, illuminated by something stronger than natural light, seems at once so beautiful and sad that Cathbad crosses himself. 'Can I help you?' he calls. His voice echoes against stone and darkness."

It's understandable that Cathbad wonders whether he's seen a real person, or a vision, even if that would belong to a faith very different from his own. But as Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson quickly discovers, along with the young woman's corpse, she's been a patient at an upscale drug rehab facility nearby. The blue "cloak" is a dressing gown, even if it does look -- to Nelson's usually unimaginative eye -- like a druid's down attire.

Ruth Galloway quickly becomes part of the investigation: partly because Nelson and his team count on her for her expertise (although usually for Iron Age skeletons!), and mostly because an old friend from archaeology school is in town for a conference of woman Anglican priests heading toward higher positions in the church hierarchy. When Hilary Smithson reconnects with Ruth, there's a powerful ulterior motive for getting back in touch: threats against her life, which Hilary hopes that Ruth can help assess, based on all the modern-day police connections that Ruth's clearly experienced in the past few (very public) years.

"The thing is," says Hilary again, cubing the cubes, "there are some people who just don't like the idea of woman priests."

Ruth knows. She's read about it in the Guardian. Though, to be honest, she usually skips those articles on the way to the TV listings.

"Most women priests get abuse of some kind, people saying things, refusing to come to their services. When I first started getting the letters I didn't think anything of it. A rite of passage ... Then, at the end of last year, the tone seemed to change, to become nastier, more sinister. But what worried me most were the references to archaeology ... because it was specific to me. ... He must have found out that I was coming to this conference."

Ruth's dubious about her ability to help -- but soon the twists of events threaten her carefully balanced life, including her relationship with her daughter's father, and when her own slant on the past comes into play (archaeology matters!), she moves several steps ahead of the police in grasping the motive for the spate of deaths of blond young women like the one "in blue."

Elly Griffiths spins a tight, taut, and neatly twisted crime plot where the significant characters -- Ruth, Nelson, Cathbad -- must learn something deeper about themselves and their part of England in order to solve the crimes and stop their escalation. Each time I read another in the Ruth Galloway series, I marvel at how few people know these. It's something about the English source of the books, of course ... THE WOMAN IN BLUE was release on the other side of the Atlantic in February, reaching us quietly in May through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. If I could summon up a change in the way these books arrive here, I'd send Griffiths on a major tour, where she could reveal her own secret life (her name's not really Griffiths! -- see her website for more) and connect with the smart savvy readers who appreciate her books so much. (I reviewed numbers 6 and 7 here.)

But then again, that would get in the way of writing Ruth Galloway investigation number 9 -- and I want more of these, for a very satisfying shelf of mysteries that I re-read with pleasure. Now that I think of it, maybe that's how I'll celebrate the start of official summer in a few weeks: by returning to the start of the series and reading them all again. Yes!

America's Revolution Begins in Murder, in BLOOD OF THE OAK, Eliot Pattison

What kinds of oppression awaken a nation to action? When do struggles for survival become a force to light a revolution? No, I'm not talking about this year's Presidential campaign, but rather, the simmering, smoky, and definitely violent build-up to the American Revolution. In the fourth book of his Bone Rattler series, BLOOD OF THE OAK, Eliot Pattison's protagonist confronts those questions -- and the investigation of multiple murders.

Exiled and shorn of his family and clan, Duncan McCallum's path during the three earlier books has meant turning his medical training into the baby steps of a new forensic science. Technically he's still a runaway from government justice, living in the forests of Pennsylvania, far from the vicious man who claims to hold him within an indenture. But readers of the earlier books have seen Duncan transformed through learning the ways of the Algonquin Nation. His friend Conawago is an elder of the Nipmuc tride, and together the men have survived brutal attacks, rescued the well-meaning and innocent, and upheld the tribal rights and customs. Duncan has, in fact, joined a New World clan, and he's well aware of how fortunate he has been. Now in 1765, he even has a woman in his life, someone he trusts and respects and who is also working for justice and, dare we say it, peace.

That may be a lot to swallow for first-time readers of this series. If it sound like further than you can imagine stretching, don't read this one yet -- go to Bone Rattler, then Eye of the Raven, then Original Death. Follow along on this remarkable but step-by-step reasonable path that Pattison outlines.

But many first-time readers of the series will find instead that the quick pace, dramatic action, and fiercely honorable allies presented here make it easy to leap into Duncan's adventures right away. Remember how William Penn thought he was creating a "city of brotherly love" in Philadelphia? Duncan's beloved Sarah Ramsey makes a smaller version possible on the western frontier (yes, Pennsylvania edged the wilderness then), in her Edentown. And Duncan needs some of that peace and tranquillity for himself.

Especially now, because he has a mission from the Iroquois. Summoning him to use his skills, Adanahoe, an elderly woman who leads the spiritual side of the tribes, needs him to retrieve a holy item that's been stolen -- before the tribes lose their ability to survive in the new age.

Almost before Duncan can reach his heart's home, though, killings erupt around him -- and without time to consider, he's thrust out into the wilderness again, chasing murderers and trying to interpret cryptic clues that surround him.

Without our hindsight, Duncan has no idea that the colonists around him in 1765 have reached a boiling point. He's been out in the forest, after all. In the taverns, and the back rooms of powerful men, rebellion is brewing. War is on the table for consideration -- and Duncan takes far too long to grasp what's at stake.

But he sees clearly enough the folly of the settlers and city men, even the ones who think they are healers bringing their art to the natives, like the young Benjamin Rush, an associate of Ben Franklin's.

Duncan eyed the tied leather roll Rush had carried through his ordeal, now resting on the pile of logs beside the young scientist. Rush sighed but did not stop him as he unrolled it, exposing a row of silvery instruments, each in its own sewn pocket. Surgical knives, tweezers, a metal rule, a small bone saw, probes, long needles with silk thread, and a reed-thin stem of metal with a tiny mirror at its end ...

Duncan eyed the tools uneasily. "What exactly in God's name are you doing here, Rush?"

"Gathering evidence, of course. With doctors in Philadelphia paying three pounds a body, there's no end of cadavers there. But it's damnable hard to find a native specimen. ... I showed them my coin. I asked about the recently dead. They did not seem to understand. Only one spoke any English and that poorly. So I pulled out a surgical blade to help him understand. He asked what it was and I told him, very slowly, to help him grasp the word. Then he pulls out his war ax and shouts at me."

Duncan stared in mute astonishment. "You must have an angel hovering over you to have survived so long. ... You come from Philadelphia, where they pay bounties for Indian hair, you show him your coin, then display your blade, naming it your scalpel." Duncan repeated the word, slowly, the way Rush must have done. "Scalp-el."

The color left Rush's face. "Dear God! I didn't ... I never meant to suggest ... dear God!" he repeated.

Duncan stared at the forlorn man, wondering not for the first time how learned men could be so unwise in the ways of the world.

But this interlude is almost a gentle one, compared with what Duncan and his friends are headed toward, as Duncan's hunt for a murderous cabal puts him into the way of the most angry patriots along the New World's coast. Duncan has never dreamed that good, wise men would ever actually choose to defy the King -- and as he begins to realize how wrong he has been, lives of the people he loves are on the line. He will have to mesh his training in deduction and reason, with the canny opportunism he's learned from both of his "tribes," to have a chance at surviving.

The horrible conditions of slaveholding, of manipulative indentures, of women who have no real rights, and of invaders uprooting a land's people in order to seize wealth -- all of these align againtst Duncan in this volume.

A small caution for mystery readers: Although Duncan's forensics operate powerfully here, especially in the first half of BLOOD OF THE OAK, several major twists and his eventual fate depend more on his ability to choose the right alliances and sustain them. Thus, this is less a tale of investigation than of revelation and maturing.

His confusion was like a physical pain. He stared at the foreboding words [on a slip of paper inside a Bible], which kindled anew his grief for the young couple in the churchyard.

It made no sense that amidst the urgent, mysterious work these men were engaged in they would take the time to speak of Shakespeare, to memorize passages ... He shook his head in bewilderment.

Pattison's deep strength is in his gift of in-life autopsy of the human mind and soul. He lines up, chapter upon chapter, the forces that Duncan must face in a new way -- or lose himself in the process.

So, this one's a little less of a clue-based mystery, but instead a powerful book of transition: for Duncan, from naive to knowing; for his friends, from tribal loyalty to spiritual search; and for the settlers and their gatherings, from ruled colonies to something that dares to whisper: Independence.

There must be a sequel already in the works; I'm looking forward to watching Pattison carry this striking and passionate narrative into the explosions that will forge the American Revolution -- and Duncan McCallum's fate.

Philippine Crime Fiction, SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES, F. H. Batacan

A story within a story -- a no-holds-barred dark police procedural with brutal crimes and a very twisted criminal, and at the same time a remarkable publishing success created by two astounding women. Yes, that's the new crime novel SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES from F. H. Batacan, whose work in a Philippine intelligence agency fueled the passions that feed this compelling work of suspense and salvation.

In an author interview provided by publisher Soho Crime, Batacan confirms grimly that injustice hasn't changed in more than a decade in her homeland. "The poor and disadvantaged have little hope of justice or redress of grievance, the politicians and lawmakers are still happily raiding the public coffers, and crimes go unsolved and unpunished by the thousands."

But seeing that situation through the eyes of a forensic researcher and a psychologist who happen to be Jesuit priests, Father Gus Saenz and Father Jerome Lucero, cuts more deeply than the plain statistics. Soon after SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES opens, both men face the frustration of knowing another Philippine priest, at a higher level, still has access to children, even though he's a known molester and abuser. At the same time, they're caught up in investigating the gruesomely murdered bodies of children at the edge of society, from families so poor than the children's dump scavenging has to provide food and scant income.

The friendship between Saenz and Jerome is deep and complex -- the older man, Father Gus Saenz, was mentor to the younger, but Father Jerome is no longer a schoolboy, and his insights into criminal behavior the the adult consequences of child abuse are invaluable to Saenz. Still, neither of them realized how desperate the poverty around them could be, until they heard from one dead child's father, telling them how bad life's been, with one parent ill (lung condition) and the other an ex-convict:

"We depended on [the child's] earnings to get by. Often, he would bring food from the dump."

Saenz's eyes widened. "From the dump?"

"If he couldn't find metal or wood or paper to sell, he would look for food -- anything thrown away that could still be used. If it was too spoiled or rotten, he would mix it together for pig slop and sell it. If there were scraps that could still be eaten, he would bring them home. Vegetables, fruit. Moldy bread. Animal fat, animal skin. Bones to make soup." ...

Saenz isn't naive; he's always known that this is the sort of existence that the country's poorest live from day to day. But to hear about it firsthand, told with such apathy and resignation, is a different thing altogether.

But is someone harvesting organs from the fragile children of the mountains of trash? Or re-enacting a horrible abuse on the small bodies?

The warm and direct friendship of the two Jesuit priests, the snippets of revelation from the criminal, and the self-justifications of the empowered all weave together into an intriguing and well-paced book that I couldn't put down. The title is from the perpetrator's perception of the investigators: "I can feel them. Scurrying in circles around me, smaller and smaller circles like rats around a crust of bread or a piece of cheese. Waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. The moment when I slip up, when I make a mistake, when I get careless. ... The priest knows. He's coming for me."

In fact, the writing is so smooth, the story so well plotted and well knit, that it's hard to believe the tale of this book's discovery: After Batacan won a prestigious prize in the Philippines for a much shorter manuscript, a mere 40,000 words long (about 150 pages), Soho editor Juliet Grames overlooked it once, then happened to read it, at the same time when the author was read to expand it. "I realized the novel was rich with atmosphere and heroism, and simultaneously darkly noir and glimmering with faith in the better aspects of human nature," Grames reported.

Batacan's decision to expand the story to the full length of a Soho Crime novel succeeded so well that the book might have come this way from the start: well rounded, and uplifting, in spite of the grim brutality it portrays.

It's good to know that Batacan plans to give us more of these two investigating Jesuits. Their triumphs may not gain full justice in a land where so much is politically impossible -- but they have each other's back, and they know what they're called to do, and who is calling them to action.

Forensic Archaeology and World War II Betrayal, in THE GHOST FIELDS, by Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway #7)

US cover

The long shadows of old crimes are familiar phenomena for Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist whose home turf is Norfolk, England: rich with dark history, which Ruth has already found dangerous to her career and her life in the previous six books in Elly Griffiths's strong and exciting series. In THE GHOST FIELDS, a body from the Second World War emerges where it shouldn't be -- in a buried airplane (the wrong kind!) in a field where a development is scheduled for construction. And when Ruth begins to probe the life and death of the quickly identified corpse, Fred Blackstock, threats from the locally significant Blackstock family multiply. But the dangers, though real, are amorphous and the killer or killers are hard to identify, in the midst of a tightly closed family full of secrets.

Griffiths braids far more tension into the mystery, through the stresses Ruth and her friends undergo in the meantime. Fans of the series already know the complicated situation Ruth's in, as a (mostly) single parent raising a precocious daughter whose father keeps stepping back into the picture; as an academic struggling against a thoughtless and periodically malicious department head; and as an undecided lover of an American whose visits to the region destabilize her heart, her routines, her hopes.

Then there is the druid component: Ruth's close friend Cathbad "just knows things" and sometimes they are relevant to untimely deaths.  Not to mention the advent of DNA testing to the region -- suddenly tying together people and differentiating others, causing shocks to family structures, old beliefs, and the current policing force where Ruth's on call.

A large part of the pleasure of this series is Ruth herself, sharp and knowledgeable in her field, but quickly insecure in crowds and among people who don't seem quite sane. With the entire Blackstock family meeting that criterion, one way or another, Ruth's in trouble until she can resolve the journey of Fred Blackstock's corpse. Griffiths alternates points of view, and when we're "inside" Ruth, we're on an all-too-human roller-coaster of determination, discovery, and dismay.

Ruth watches as Fred's coffin is lowered into the grave. It's a moment that never ceases to shock, no matter how long ago the death. The crowd begins to disperse and, conspicuous amongst the sea of black, she sees Cathbad and Hazel, both wearing purple cloaks, standing to one side of the grave. The TV cameraman is filming them surreptitiously. And there's Nelson, accompanied by Tim Heathfield and Clough, moving forward to talk to Sally Blackstock. The cameraman, who has, up until now, been the soul of discretion, allows himself a few shots of the grave and of Nell Blackstock walking away, clutching the folded flag to her chest.

Ruth stays back. She doesn't much want to talk to the TV people or to the family. She is still wondering whether to attend the 'celebration' at Blackstock Hall. ... When she thinks of the scene last night, she is struck by a slight but real jolt of fear. She remembers Old George howling in the pets' burial ground and standing at the head of the table proposing a toast.

Madness, menace, and the constant mayhem that defines managing a challenging career and parenting -- that's what Ruth is in for, and THE GHOST FIELDS (a term for the old airfields in the region) provides suspense and intrigue and quick, sharp jabs of dry British humor as well.

Elly Griffiths is on a good roll here, tossing Ruth's often chaotic life with generous helpings of crime, sleuthing, and suspense. It's a great series -- halfway between amateur sleuth and professional investigator -- and although there are advantages to reading all the books in order (start with The Crossing Places), THE GHOST FIELDS is very readable on its own. Of course, it's likely that if you read this one without the others, you'll soon be sleuthing the shop and online shelves, looking for the other six. But there's nothing wrong with that adventure! At least you are not going to have to face dinner with the Blackstocks on your own.

[PS: Published in Great Britain by Quercus; brought across "the Pond" by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. And released for publication in the United States on May 19, 2015.]

Going Global: To Florence with Marco Vichi, DEATH IN SARDINIA; to Dublin with Louise Phillips, RED RIBBONS

Reading darker crime fiction lately? Here are two authors whose mysteries probe very different kinds of evil -- where each redeems the story in a very different way.

Louise Phillips is a significant award winner in Ireland, and Hachette Ireland recently brought her series to the United States. I started with RED RIBBONS, a forensic investigation featuring Dr. Kate Pearson -- she's a criminal profiler in Dublin, where there's plenty of skepticism about her craft and skills among the usual police investigative teams. But the discovery of a murdered child, carefully posed in her grave in ways that must have meaning to the murderer (why the braids and red ribbon? why the prayerful position), pulls Kate into a race-the-clock partnership with Detective Inspector O'Connor and his team. It's clear the killer's likely to strike again, and also pretty obvious that the timing of the next murder may be a lot faster than the investigation can move.

Phillips is deft and sure with pace, suspense, and twists. She lays out two other important narratives: one, the mind of the killer -- at least as skillful as the investigators, and in the lead on this perverse dance; and the other, the confusion of Ellie Brady a woman who's spent years in a psychiatric hospital, numbed with medication, after declaring she'd killed her own daughter. As the strands pull closer to each other, the risk for the probing profiler takes on menace toward her and her family.

RED RIBBONS could take place in most locations where urban landscape meets preserved wilder lands, and the main "feel" of Ireland here is the structure of police responsibilities, as well as a throbbing sense of the power of religious imagery. Even when the crime is solved, there's no recovery from damage done. But (unlike Stuart Neville's books, for instance) it's not especially steeped in Irish history.

In that sense, it's very different from Marco Vichi's series.

DEATH IN SARDINIA is the third in Vichi's Inspector Bordelli series, which is gradually making its way here via release in English in the UK, then in America, thanks to Pegasus Crime - but the series is originally in Italian. This title opens in the December holiday season of 1965, just 20 years from the end of World War II. Through Bordelli, a lonely bachelor unable to quite kick the cigarette habit, or the habit of socializing with a former prostitute, the war is an unforgettable part of his own life. His city of Florence is tinged with the sorrow, loss, and anger that the war's left behind. And although the crime he's investigating -- the murder of a loan shark who seems to have few pleasant qualities -- is clearly personal and related to some recent pressure on a victim-turned-killer, Bordelli keeps coming across threads that lead back to the war: a scandalous photo from a concentration camp, for instance.

Meanwhile he's missing one of his officers, the young police office Piras, who's recovering from a gunshot wound at his parents' home in Sardinia. When Piras realizes that a death in the village community is also murder, for Inspector Bordelli there is significant relief in being able to help the younger man's investigation move quickly forward.

The pace and the dolor of midlife frustrations for Inspector Bordelli echo Henning Mankell's Wallender series -- but with some lovely interludes, like the visits Bordelli pays to the hospital room of a dying colleague, to play cards with the frail Baragli and pretend death's not approaching, while also discussing the case:

"It was probably one of his debtors that did it," Baragli muttered with a wheezy voice.

"That's exactly where I'll begin."

"You've got your work cut out for you, if there are as many as you say."

... "I also found some photographs of a very young girl hidden behind a picture frame on the wall. I've got some men looking for her," said Bordelli, to let him feel part of the investigation. And indeed the sergeant seemed pleased.

Even this small sample reveals the slightly stilted language of the translation, which I suspect reflects partly the original and partly the deliberately slow uncovering of the everyday evils that Bordelli is confronting. There were moments when I felt like I was reading a Russian novel -- one memorable paragraph lasted for two pages! -- but the warmth with which Vichi's protagonists interact with their colleagues and friends kept me reading. It's good to savor this kind of portrait of teamwork and to see the author letting it gently reflect the bonds that soldiers in a long war also form.

I enjoyed DEATH IN SARDINIA, and I'll look for more Vichi crime fiction ... to read when I can make time to linger with the language and characters. Winter turned out to be a good time to read this one.

J. T. Ellison, WHEN SHADOWS FALL: Forensic Detection and Suspense

[Note: Publication date Feb. 25 -- a good time to preorder, or to ask a local independent bookstore to be sure to stock this title!]

It's time for forensic pathologist and investigator Dr. Samantha Owens to take a break from the losses and stress of front-line detection (see Edge of Black and A Deeper Darkness), so she's accepted a teaching slot at Georgetown University, while her lover, Xander (Alexander Whitfield), nurtures her recovery with weekends at a forest retreat with their affectionate dog. Or at least, that's how she thought things were heading. But the arrival of a letter from a man she's never heard of, Timothy Savage, throws everything off kilter. Savage is begging her to investigate his own death -- a death that's only just taken place, and that's already been deemed "self-inflicted."

But it's not. And to go with that discovery, Sam finds that the deceased has a will with a bunch of legatees who turn out to be connected to the years of crimes and disappearances -- as well as a kidnapping demanding the immediate attention of the team she's suddenly working with. There may even be a chance to save other lives along the way:

She looked down at her hands and realized she was covered in blood. Davidson looked down at her, and silently handed her his handkerchief.

She wiped her hands on it, watching the white stain red.

His voice was shaky and she realized he was fighting back tears. Her estimation of him went up a few notches. He swiped at his eyes.

At stake for the investigation: the life of a child, and maybe the lives of five other children taken previously. At stake for Sam: her emotional stability, as she wrestles with the loss of her own husband and child from the past, the effects of previous investigations on her soul, and how to handle a love relationship she can't quite commit to, while also juggling two jobs and confronting a violent and twisted religious group that sure looks like a cult. Not to mention emotional complications with other investigators on her team, too:

She thought about his words. Having this conversation with Fletcher was utterly bizarre, but she sensed he wanted to have it. They'd been dancing around it for months. She knew Fletcher had feelings for her. She simply never acknowledged them. It was too much to deal with -- she'd had two years of grief and numbness, and suddenly, three months ago, in the course of a single week, she'd lost another man she used to love and, while investigating his death, found Fletcher and Xander. Two wonderful men who were both good for her, in their own ways.

Two loves lost. And two found. But only one made her heart sing.

Obvious comparisons, because of the forensics aspect, are to crime fiction by Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell, plus Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series. But Ellison writes very differently from all of these; her investigator, Sam Owens, is refreshingly sane and balanced, and her decisions work toward solving the crime, rather than toward increasing her own pain. Count on thriller-speed action with a complex but emotionally accessible investigator who grows and changes as she increases her own capabilities and the success of her team. Ellison often teams up with Catherine Coulter, and the strong story strands and supportive threads of romance reflect that expertise. If you're new to the series, you'll still be able to enjoy WHEN SHADOWS FALL without extra explanation; if you're already following it, this is an eminently satisfying addition to the earlier Sam Owens investigations.

Brief Mention: Andrea Kane, THE STRANGER YOU KNOW

During this very strange Super Bowl game evening, I confess I've been distracted -- I hope my lack of attention didn't contribute to the Denver disaster. Sigh. Superstition runs rife among sports fans and writers. There is one sports fan in the house, and one writer who makes sports-related kitchen efforts. You can probably guess which of us is which.

In the process of fine-tuning the chicken wings recipe and excavating a heap of books in the kitchen (hey, you know how distraction goes), I found a title that I should have reviewed back in October, when it was released: THE STRANGER YOU KNOW by Andrea Kane. It's the latest to feature the "Forensic Instincts" team: headed by Casey Woods, and specializing in behavioral and forensic psychology. I like the generous and strong characters, the quick thriller-style pacing, and the carefully shaded modern noir note here. Kane's earlier titles brought out by Mira (the crime fiction side of Harlequin) are The Girl Who Disappeared Twice and The Line Between Here and Gone.

While I'm sorry to be late mentioning Kane and this latest title, I am glad to see the book is coming out in paperback in March. If you're a pre-order person and you'd like to sample this line of well-crafted psychological sleuthing, here's a good moment to mark Kane onto your list.

Kane is a long-time author of romantic thrillers and historical romances as well, and she's a Jersey Girl; I hope we'll see another title from her soon. Author website here.