Beverley McLachlin was the longest-serving Chief Justice of Canada.

Now, after mandatory retirement, she’s a novelist.

Her first book is a legal procedural/mystery/thriller all rolled into one.

One of the strongest elements of this novel is the procedural authenticity, which is to be expected.

It’s not bad. Not great.

There’s nothing Jilly Truitt likes more than winning a case, especially against her former mentor, prosecutor Cy Kenge. Jilly has baggage, the residue of a dark time in a series of foster homes, but that’s in the past. Now she’s building her own criminal defense firm and making a name for herself as a tough-as-nails lawyer willing to take risks in the courtroom.

When the affluent and enigmatic Vincent Trussardi is accused of his wife Laura’s murder, Jilly agrees to defend him, despite predictions that the case is a sure loser and warnings from those close to her to stay away from the Trussardi family. …

CBC review

An early Joe Pickett novel featured an endangered species in Wyoming.

#15 — Endangered — does, as well.

It’s a good book.

Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, even if he was a rodeo champion, and now he has even more—Joe’s eighteen-year-old daughter, April, has run off with him.

And then comes even worse news: The body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway—alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma. It is April, and the doctors aren’t sure if she’ll recover.

Cates denies having anything to do with it—says she ran away from him, too—and there’s evidence that points to another man. But Joe knows in his gut who’s responsible. What he doesn’t know is the kind of danger he’s about to encounter. Cates is bad enough, but Cates’s family is like none Joe has ever met before.

Joe’s going to find out the truth, even if it kills him. But this time, it just might.

CJBox.net

This 6th book in the series is quite different. Many new and engaging characters.

I like it.

Desperately avoiding the professional hit men who have already put a bullet in his leg, Cork finds sanctuary outside the small Michigan town of Bodine. But while he’s hiding out in an old resort owned by his cousin Jewell DuBois, a bitter widow with a fourteen-year-old son named Ren, the body of a young girl surfaces along the banks of the Copper River.

And then, soon after, another teenager vanishes.

Instead of thwarting his assassins, Cork focuses on tracking a ring of killers who prey on innocent children—desperate to catch them before anyone else falls victim. But as his deadly followers close in, Cork realizes he’s made an error any good man might make—and it may be his last.

williamkentkrueger.com

10 short stories — including 4 that feature Joe Pickett.

My favourite was The Master Falconer, an encounter between Nate Romanowski and a Saudi prince who wants American birds.

Amazon

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926).

Hercule Poirot retires to a village near the home of a friend, Roger Ackroyd, to pursue a project to perfect vegetable marrows. Soon after, Ackroyd is murdered and Poirot must come out of retirement to solve the case.

It is one of Christie’s best known and most controversial novels. There are MANY suspects.

The ending…

I dunno.

There have been many adaptations.

Easily the best book in the Cork O’Connor series. So far.

Happy and content in his hometown of Aurora, Minnesota, Cork O’Connor has left his badge behind and is ready for a life of relative peace, setting up shop as a private investigator. But his newfound state of calm is soon interrupted when Henry Meloux, an Ojibwe medicine man and Cork’s spiritual adviser, makes a request: Will Cork find the son that Henry fathered long ago?

With little to go on, Cork uses his investigative skills to locate Henry Wellington, a wealthy and reclusive industrialist living in Thunder Bay, Ontario. When a murder attempt is made on old Meloux’s life, all clues point north across the border. But why would Wellington want his father dead? …

williamkentkrueger.com

#14 in the series. It’s a good one.

Everything about the man is a mystery: the massive ranch in the remote Black Hills of Wyoming that nobody ever visits, the women who live with him, the secret philanthropies, the private airstrip, the sudden disappearances.

And especially the persistent rumors that the man’s wealth comes from killing people.

… There are two other men living up at that ranch. One is a stone-cold killer who takes an instant dislike to Joe.

The other is new—but Joe knows him all too well.

The first man doesn’t frighten Joe. The second is another story entirely.

CJBox.net

Peter May is a terrific writer and I wanted to enjoy his China Thrillers series.

But both his two lead characters — Chinese detective Li Yan, and Dr Margaret Campbell, pathologist from Chicago — are simply annoying.

In fact, I didn’t finish book #1.

I did finish #2, The Fourth Sacrifice, but I doubt I will continue.

A new character, an archeologist TV star, kept me interested in this one. I did enjoy the parts that involved the trove of Xian with its famous army of terracotta warriors.

Overall … not recommended.