The 5th book (2011) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Shock Wave.

Quite good. I do like Virgil, a cop who hates guns, and struggles with his religious faith.

The superstore chain PyeMart has its sights set on a Minnesota river town, but two very angry groups want to stop it: local merchants fearing for their businesses, and environmentalists, predicting ecological disaster.

The protests don’t seem to be slowing the project, though, until someone decides to take matters into his own hands.

The first bomb goes off on the top floor of PyeMart’s headquarters. The second one explodes at the construction site itself. The blasts are meant to inflict maximum damage — and they do. Who’s behind the bombs, and how far will they go? It’s Virgil Flowers’s job to find out… before more people get killed.

I’ve been recommending this series of whodunnits by Anthony Horowitz.

Really fun. Very original.

Something of another British cozy mystery.

• The Word is Murder (2018)
• The Sentence is Death (2019)
• A Line to Kill (2021)
• The Twist of a Knife (2022)

Close to Death (2024) is just as good as the rest.

Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong, and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Shari Lapena is a good writer. I recommend this murder mystery.

Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont.

The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked.

But this morning, all of that will change.

Because Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer. 

How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.

Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.

ShariLapena.com

The 11th book (2018) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Holy Ghost.

Virgil Flowers investigates a miracle — and a murder —

Pinion, Minnesota: a metropolis of all of seven hundred souls, for which the word “moribund” might have been invented. Nothing ever happened there and nothing ever would — until the mayor of sorts (campaign slogan: “I’ll Do What I Can”) and a buddy come up with a scheme to put Pinion on the map.

They’d heard of a place where a floating image of the Virgin Mary had turned the whole town into a shrine, attracting thousands of pilgrims. And all those pilgrims needed food, shelter, all kinds of crazy things, right? They’d all get rich! What could go wrong?

When the dead body shows up, they find out, and that’s only the beginning of their troubles — and Virgil Flowers’ — as they are all about to discover all too soon.

Wayfaring Stranger (2014) is the first Burke book I’ve read.

He seems a very good writer — though I only got through 50% of this one.

It got too bleak. Good people somehow ruining their lives.

It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy. Burke’s also been compared to Thomas Hardy.

I’d given up on Karen Slaughter, finding her early books simple too violent against women.

They are horror.

For some reason I downloaded this short book — and found it excellent.

Protecting someone always comes at a cost.

At the age of thirteen, Charlie Quinn’s childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into her home—and after that shocking night, Charlie’s world was never the same.

Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teen, begs for help, Charlie is reminded of her own past, and is powerless to say no.

But honor-student Flora is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Soon she must ask herself: How far should she go to protect her client? And can she truly believe everything she is being told?

Excellent historical fiction. I was astonished by how many facts were included in this entertaining romp.

The Phoenix Crown (2024)

From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles.

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage.

Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.

Of the other characters, I enjoyed Alice Eastwood most. Based on a real person of the era.