Peter Swanson wrote for 10 years before finally finding an agent who would push his books.
I started with his most recent — Nine Lives (2022).
A group of seemingly unconnected strangers get a list of 9 names. The only one they recognize is their own.
Why?
If you’re on the list, you’re marked for death. One by one they are killed, while investigators rush to find the killer.
To Kill a Troubadour (2022) is 15th in the Bruno, Chief of Police series.
Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges is the superhuman village policeman in a small town in the Périgord region of France.
The British author has a home there. Walker is an excellent writer though I found this book somewhat overly complicated and detailed. It slowed down the story which revolves around Russians trying to disrupt Spain around the issue of the Catalan independence movement.
… a wonderful mix of crime investigation, scrumptious food, Périgordian history, Bruno’s friends and colleagues, and of course, Bruno himself.
And readers also get a healthy dose of Bruno’s basset hound, Balzac, and Balzac’s adorable new pup, “the Bruce”. …
Review of To Kill a Troubadour
I do recommend the book.
Excellent.
Rachel North is not your average law student. For starters, she is far older than most of her classmates and married to a prestigious Boston defense attorney. She has a background in politics and a solid understanding of law as the daughter of a lawyer.
As she enters her third year of law school at Harvard, she starts an internship that collides with her previous political career and her marriage to her devoted husband, Jack. Together with her new boss, Rachel works to get to the bottom of a cold case that has haunted her memories for years. …
Book Review: The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan
A very good book.
It kept me guessing.
Ariel Pryce wakes up in Lisbon, alone.
Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong.
She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?
The clock is ticking. Ariel is increasingly frustrated and desperate, running out of time, and the one person in the world who can help is the one person she least wants to ask.
Google Books
A big fan of Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series, it took a while before I tried his masterwork, the 2014 Edgar Award winner for best novel.
It’s fantastic.
Other candidates that year included Ian Rankin and Louise Penny.
Krueger was raised in small town Minnesota. The same age as the 13-year-old narrator of this book.
My main takeaway — at the end — is that two of the characters I’d include in my list of best all time. Frank’s father, Nathan, a Methodist minister. And Frank’s younger brother, who eventually also becomes a minister.
If you asked me to name great Christians in fiction, I’d include those two.
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New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack.
It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.
Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family— which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother— he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years. …
Goodreads
Book #3 in the series featuring Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police in the sleepy village of St. Denis, France.
This story deals with crime and murder in the truffles trade.
As usual, Bruno has woman trouble.
The 13th in the Inspector Gamache series (2017). Excellent writing, as always.
BUT I am fed up with the absurdity of her plots.
This nonsense must be the most unlikely yet.
Gamache is now the Head of Surete du Quebec — yet finds himself in court risking perjury. Why is never made clear (to me) though it seems to have something to do with saving young Quebecois. From drugs.
Every less likely is a mysterious masked person in black standing in Two Pines. For a couple of days.
Could drugs be smuggled through a tunnel in the church basement? Right after a murder in the same basement?
Readers are expected to believe it.
A woman who claims to be Heather Bethany, a girl who had gone missing thirty years before, turns up in her old neighbourhood.
An intriguing plot.
Another great Barclay.
One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most people assumed Andy had got away with murder, but the police couldn’t build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom – he drank too much, was abandoned by his friends, nearly lost his business and became a pariah in the place he had once called home.
Now, six years later, Andy has put his life back together. He’s sold the house he shared with Brie and moved away for a fresh start. When he hears his old house has been bulldozed and a new house built in its place, he’s not bothered. He’s settled with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good. …
LinwoodBarclay.com
What happens when Brie unexpectedly turns up?
Portrait of an Unknown Woman is the 25th novel by Daniel Silva.
I’d say it’s one of the best.
The legendary Head of ‘the Office’ (Mossad), Gabriel Allon, has finally retired.
A career in Israeli secret service that began in 1972. One of the team assigned to hunt down and eliminate those responsible for killing the Israel athletes in Munich.
He moved with his Italian wife and children to Venice. And goes back to his roots as an art restorer.
A well deserved retirement. Until he gets a call about an Art forger.
Many favourite characters from past books return. Including the Corsican goat.
Rick McCharles 