The Samaritan, third in Omar Yussef Sirhan series by Matt Benyon Rees, eerily echoes breaking news stories, this time from Nablus.
The Dead of Winter, third in John Madden series by Rennie Airth, with haunting, elegant, powerful writing about 1944 London and rural England.
Buried Strangers, second in Brazilian chief investigator Mario Silva series by Leighton Gage, a cop who dirties his hands to solve violent crime.
The Case of the Missing Servant: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall skillfully guides perplexed Westerners through the seeming contradictions of contemporary India.
The Widow’s Revenge, 14th in Charlie Moon series by James D. Doss, with wonderful writing and gentle humor sustains a breakneck pace among Ute, Apache and Anglo cultures of southern Colorado.
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Debut Dagger Award-winner Alan Bradley presents a precociously intelligent 1950s youngest daughter “to the manor born” with a penchant for chemistry.
The Silent Spirit, 14th in Arapaho lawyer Vickie Holden and John O’Malley, S.J. series by Margaret Coel, seamlessly uses split-time between 1920s movie making and contemporary reservation crime.
The Alpine Uproar, 21st in Emma Lord series by Mary Daheim, lacks all the right things: extraneous words, misleading clues, cloying characters, and implausible situations.
The Dark Horse, fifth in Sheriff Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson, the confessed murderer of an arsonist who killed horses locked inside a barn doesn’t ring true for Walt.
Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin, introduces a vivacious 19th century rural heroine as physically clumsy as she is mentally adroit with writing as scholarly as any classic Russian literature.
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