Bad Blood (2010) is another intense murder mystery by John Sandford.

4th in the Virgil Flowers series.

One Sunday in late fall in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator — and a young man hits him on the head with a t-ball bat, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he’s sure he’s dead (if the blow didn’t kill him, the smothering grain surely would), and then calls the sheriff to report the “accident.”

Suspicious, the sheriff quickly breaks the kid down… and the next day the boy’s found hanging in his cell.

Remorse? The sheriff’s not so sure, and in fact she’s beginning to wonder if one of her own men might not be responsible. She has no choice but to bring in outside help, and investigator Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is her man (in more ways than one — the sheriff’s awfully attractive, he notices).

As Virgil investigates, though, what at first seems fairly simple quickly becomes very complicated as he begins to uncover a multi-generation, multi-family conspiracy — a series of crimes of such monstrosity that, though he’s seen an awful lot in his life, even Virgil has difficulty in comprehending it… and in figuring out what to do next.

The 3rd book in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Rough Country.

The earlier books in this excellent series are not nearly as good as later ones.

To me Virgil seems very two dimensional in this one. I didn’t much care about his investigation.

Virgil’s always been known for having a somewhat active, er, social life, but he’s probably not going to be getting too many opportunities for that during his new case.

While competing in a fishing tournament in a remote area of northern Minnesota, he gets a call from Lucas Davenport to investigate a murder at a nearby resort, where a woman has been shot while kayaking. The resort is for women only, a place to relax, get fit, recover from plastic surgery, commune with nature, and while it didn’t start out to be a place mostly for those with Sapphic inclinations, that’s pretty much what it is today.

Which makes things all the more complicated for Virgil, because as he begins investigating, he finds a web of connections between the people at the resort, the victim, and some local women, notably a talented country singer, and the more he digs, the move he discovers the arrows of suspicion that point in many directions, encompassing a multitude of motivations: jealousy, blackmail, greed, anger, fear.

And then he discovers that this is not the first murder, that there was a second, seemingly unrelated one, the year before.

And that there’s about to be a third, definitely related one, any time now.

And as for the fourth… well, Virgil better hope he can catch the killer before that happens.

Because it could be his own.

The 2nd book in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Heat Lightning.

Virgil wasn’t nearly as compelling a character in the beginning as in the later books.

Still, I find these books fascinating. I’m totally hooked.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers …

It’s a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, and Flowers is in bed with one of his ex-wives (the second one, if you’re keeping count), when the phone rings. It’s Lucas Davenport. There’s a body in Stillwater — two shots to the head, found near a veteran’s memorial. And the victim has a lemon in his mouth.

Exactly like the body they found last week.

The more Flowers works the murders, the more convinced he is that someone’s keeping a list, and that the list could have a lot more names on it. If he could only find out what connects them all . . . and then he does, and he’s almost sorry he did.

Because if it’s true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought — and every one of them is booby-trapped.

23rd Midnight is one of the Women’s Murder Club (novel series).

Quite good.

Set in San Francisco, the novels follow a group of women from different professions relating to investigating crime as they work together to solve murders. 

Detective Lindsay Boxer put serial killer Evan Burke in jail. 
 
Reporter Cindy Thomas wrote a book that put him on the bestseller list.
 
An obsessed maniac has turned Burke’s true-crime story into a playbook. And is embellishing it with gruesome touches all his own. 
 
Now Lindsay’s tracking an elusive suspect, and the entire Murder Club is facing destruction.

Sherlock Holmes gets married!

To a much younger woman. Mary turns 21 on January 2, 1921, and Holmes’s age is 58.

Quite a good book.

Both characters mock Arthur Conan Doyle as he increasingly writes about spiritualism.

A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995) is the second book in the Mary Russell series of mystery novels by Laurie R. King. …

In the winter of 1920, Mary Russell is on the cusp of turning 21 and lives a double life of Oxford University theological scholar as well as a consulting detective and partner of Sherlock Holmes.

After events in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, both Holmes and Russell are aware that their relationship and partnership has changed, perhaps romantically, but neither is eager to broach the subject. …

The plot revolves around the well-financed New Temple in God and its leader, the enigmatic, charismatic Margery Childe, who preaches empowerment of women.

The role of women post WWI in Britain is discussed in detail.

Another theme is PTSD in returning soldiers.

And addiction.

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