detectives

I was swept away by this miniseries. Not fully knowing what to expect, the first episode traps you in an engaging story of anxiety and murder. The set-up feels like the first half of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Every detail, small or otherwise, will be taken into account in later episodes that depict the trial of one of the protagonists.

The show is spearheaded by John Turturro who plays criminal court attorney John Stone. Stone can be described as an "ambulance chaser" but clearly has a soft spot for people in general and his family specifically. His struggles with eczema mirror the

Matthew Dane was a police officer until his daughter was kidnapped and missing for years.  He then left the force and started a private detective service so he could continue the search for his daughter.  Once his daughter was found, he was able to help her adjust to life outside of captivity and then help other families in the same situation.  

Shannon Bliss went missing at the age of 16.  Now, almost 12 years later, Matthew finds a woman waiting for him outside his hotel room claiming to be Shannon Bliss.  She is seeking his assistance in reuniting with her family and bringing down the

I have read many pastiches of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, but I think I enjoyed this one the most.  Sherlock Holmes has retired to the country where he keeps bees and takes on the occasional job. One day, while out on the moor, he stumbles across Mary Russell, and they somehow develop a friendship.  Holmes teaches her the art of detection and she becomes an apprentice of sorts. As their relationship develops, Holmes involves her in one of his cases, a kidnapping, and then strange things start to happen to Miss Russell! Mrs. Hudson and Doctor Watson are here in supporting roles.  

Th

In a spotless suburban home in Ireland, a man and two children are found dead, and a badly-wounded woman is rushed to the hospital. They are residents of Broken Harbor, a nearly-abandoned new development left in the lurch after the housing crisis. This is how Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy finds the Spain family, and has his chance to be top detective on the murder squad. In addition to taking on the biggest case of the year, he has a rookie, Richie Curran, to break in.

Detective Kennedy, a scrupulous man who holds fast to the rules, seems to be the one for the job. His new man, Curran, is

Lieutenant Billy Boyle would much rather be a police detective back home in Boston than the personal investigator of his "Uncle Ike" in war ravaged London. Yes, he was recently promoted in Boston to police detective before the war, but that was mainly due to his police family's efforts, not his. Upon arriving in England, Billy is soon placed in a sink-or-swim investigation where he must use his untested detective skills to solve a murder and stop a spy.

 Billy Boyle is a good start to a series that combines the setting of World War II with the classic murder mystery genre.  The mystery itself

How far would you go to know the truth about your father? When orphan Carver Young discovers a letter written by his father, he becomes caught up in the hunt for a notorious killer who just may hold the keys to his past. Receiving help from friends, a famous Pinkerton detective, and even Theodore Roosevelt himself, Carver will discover that perhaps it is better to leave the past buried.

I love a good mystery and this story is just that. Set in the turn-of-the-century New York, Ripper is a fun and exciting mystery tale that seems to have it all: chases, intrigue, the crazy mentor, roof-top

What do a cryptologist, patent lawyer, artist, writer, chemist, math teacher, and their waiter do when they get together? Why solve mysteries of course! At least, that is what they do in the mind and imagination of Isaac Asimov in his Black Widowers short stories. Each month this group gets together for dinner. They take turns bringing a guest. Inevitably, a mystery around the guest arises, and the Black Widowers attempt to solve it. No matter how much the others may try, it is always Henry, the waiter, who unravels the puzzle.

More known for his science fiction stories, Asimov began to

It’s been awhile since I first started reading Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series, at least ten years and thirteen books ago. I recently came across the first book in the series, Storm Front, and decided to reread it. I’m glad I did. It gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with Harry Dresden, wizard for hire, before all the ensuing mayhem and madness that descends upon him in later books.

Harry Dresden fits the description of a hard-boiled detective–he’s tough and he regularly confronts violence and danger. Although he does have a soft spot for women in distress, you don’t want to see

Death Cloud is the first in Andrew Lane’s excellent new series about young Sherlock Holmes.  Lane, a Brit who has written fan fiction for Doctor Who and James Bond, explains in his afterword that, “Arthur Conan Doyle gave little away about Sherlock’s early years… That has given me the freedom to create a history for Sherlock that is consistent with the few hints that Conan Doyle did let slip, but also leads inevitably to the man that Conan Doyle described.”  And he did a great job: this is the first teen series to be endorsed by the Conan Doyle estate.

The book opens on a secondary character

Started Early, Took My Dog  is Kate Atkinson's fourth installment of the Jackson Brodie series.  Jackson is a country music loving , semi-retired British private investigator.  As this story begins he is pondering his state of affairs--he's approaching middle age without much direction. The women in his life have done him wrong and he feels estranged from his teenage daughter.    And his financial affairs are a  bit rocky.  To help his cash flow, Jackon reluctantly agrees to help a cheerful young New Zealand woman find her birth parents in the UK.  What should be a straight forward case is

A Swedish mystery of crime and revenge. The Beast opens the book, waiting for his prey…schoolgirls, age 10 or so. He knows them. He has studied them. They’ve seen him before. They know they shouldn’t look at him or talk to him. They are wary, but curious. He knows as soon as they answer him that he has already won. It’s every parent’s greatest nightmare, from inside the head of the Beast.

Four years later, the Beast escapes police custody and, as predicted in his psychiatric evaluation, again commits a horrific crime. But this will be the last time. Now the law must punish a father for an act

If you liked (or loved) Dee Henderson's O'Malley Series you will enjoy (or love) Lynette Eason's new series Omen of Justice which begins with Too Close to Home. Homicide detective Connor Wolfe is spearheading the taskforce looking into the mysterious disappearance of teen girls in his small southern town. At first glance the victims don't appear to have anything in common so Connor calls in FBI Special Agent Samantha Cash, computer expert, to go over all of the girls' computers and phone records to see if she can find anything to connect the girls.

The more time Connor spends working on the

This is an older mystery, one I read shortly after it was first published in 1983, but it has stuck with me for many years, so when I recently found the library had a newly published edition, I reread it.  I was not disappointed--the characters inhabiting the small, terminally ill coal-mining town in Pennsylvania are still the rock solid working class, some of whom are immigrants and some first-generation Americans decended from their Italian and Polish parents.  The struggle to rise beyond the coal mines and unemployment are leading some of the residents to investigate  earning money in some

Cara Black's mysteries, set in Paris in the late 1990s, are appealing to mystery lovers and Francophiles alike, what with all the name-dropping of Parisian streets, monuments, subway lines, and cafes. The premise of Aimee Leduc and her side-kick Rene, a dwarf and computer-hacking whiz, who investigate computer crimes through the Leduc Detective Agency in Paris, is an intriguing idea, and in this one, Aimee is arrested for the non-fatal shooting of Rene , thickening the plot right from the outset, as Aimee tries to extract herself from suspicion, reconnect with a brother she has never known

This book, Tana French's debut novel, is a mystery set in a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Most of the story takes place in the present, but there are important references to an event that happened in August 1984. That 1984 event happened to the book's main character, Adam "Rob" Ryan, who is now a detective partnered with Cassie Maddox. The complex relationship between Cassie and Rob is at the heart of the story; indeed, I think it IS the story. All the mysterious subplots about the crimes against children, opposition to a road that is proposed to come through and change their Dublin suburb