Over the many years I’ve attended conventions of crime and mystery writers, the thought has crossed my mind—more than once—that they’d make excellent sets for, well, murder. Jaime Lynn Hendricks takes this idea and goes to work with it I DID NOT (Scarlet, 325 pp., $26.95), her third suspenseful novel and a novel that amusingly exposes all sorts of writerly uncertainties.
After a star author, Kristin Bailey, is found dead in her hotel room during the Murderpalooza conference, word quickly spreads among other attendees. Soon, an anonymous Twitter account called @MPaloozaNxt2Die begins following and threatening just four people, all Kristin’s publishing rivals.
There’s Vicki Overton, a midlist author who thinks Kristin was having an affair with her boyfriend; Suzanne Shih, a young writer who has had an unhealthy obsession with Kristin for years; Davis Walton, a newcomer who covets Kristin’s success; and Mike Brooks, a has-been who spent months quietly working on a novel with Kristin “that should take the industry by storm.” (Unfortunately, as he explains to his wife, it’s “about secret co-authors, and one gets killed at a conference. And in the book, the co-author did it.”)
As the endangered quartet work together to find out if Kristin’s killer and their Twitter stalker are one and the same, Hendricks revels in her characters’ flaws, absurdities, and over-the-top Twitter reliance. Frankly, there’s a little too much Twitter, but you forget about it when you hit the final, dramatic twists and turns.
Martin Cruz Smith introduced the Moscow detective Arkady Renko in the classic spy thriller “Gorky Park” in 1981. Arkady returns for his 10th appearance in INDEPENDENCE SQUARE (Simon & Schuster, 261 pp., $26.99)looking for a friend’s daughter – an anti-Putin activist – who disappeared during the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The plot, however, is secondary to the gripping drama unfolding in Arkady’s own life: he – like the author – has developed Parkinson’s disease.
Sitting on a couch outside the clinic after the diagnosis, he realizes that there are “three ways to deal with this new problem: acceptance, confrontation and denial. Acceptance was not so much a strategy as an aspiration. It would come in time, presumably when he had exhausted all other options. Confrontation was all well and good, but it would elevate the disease to a station more central and important than Arkady wanted.
That Arkady chooses the third option – denial – suits his character and is crucial to how the book unfolds, as a moving picture of the battle against political and personal tides.
Struggle against political and personal tides also plays a prominent role Stacey Abrams’ new suspense novel, the second to feature Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene. Building on the frenetic events of ‘While Justice Sleeps’, ROGUE JUSTICE (Doubleday, 368 pp., $29) begins with Avery in the crosshairs of the right-wing media machine, her professional and romantic life stuck in the wrong gear.
In other words, a little rest would be in order. But no: Avery is minding her own business at a legal conference when another lawyer hands her a burner phone and flees. She sprints after him, only to hear the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, “Her stomach heaved and her hand gripped convulsively.” She had just witnessed an execution. Then she remembered the phone in her hand. A dead man’s phone. A phone that spewed out geospatial data every second.” You or I would drop the phone, but not Avery; her curiosity leads her into a thicket of blackmailed judges, secret court rulings and existential threats of all kinds.
Just like she did in “When Justice Sleeps,” Abrams saturates her story with details (this time dealing with cybersecurity concerns). But the pages are still turning. Abrams excels at showing how power and the desire for revenge can twist people into the worst versions of themselves.
When a famous singer-songwriter takes the backseat of your beat-up Volkswagen Jetta, be prepared to do whatever she says. That’s what Adam Zantz learns in Daniel Weizmann’s moody neo-noir debut, THE LAST SONGBIRD (Melville House, 330 pp., paperback, $17.99), when Annie Linden requests a ride, first on the apps, then as a private arrangement. When Annie is found dead, Adam decides he must find out who did it.
Weizmann’s bona fide music—he was a punk rock columnist and ghostwriter Dee Dee Ramone’s memoir—sets the novel’s tone and purpose, but it’s equally clear how steeped it is in detective fiction styles past and present. Adams and Annie’s relationships with each other, themselves and especially their music buzz with authentic emotion. This is a story about murder, but also about a lively life.
The mystery at Mary Logue’s center THE BIG SUGAR (University of Minnesota, 191 pp., $22.95) doesn’t really start until half way through the novel. By then I was already captivated by the book’s heroine, Brigid Reardon, whom I first met in ‘The Streel’ (2020), when she and her brother Seamus fled Ireland and ended up in Deadwood, SD. The Big Sugar” got under my skin in a major way.
It is now 1881 and Brigid and her boyfriend (and possible love interest) Padraic have gone to Cheyenne, Wyo. Traveled to track down her brother, claim some land and start a new life. Soon Brigid discovers the murdered body of a neighbor hanging from the branch of a poplar, her underskirt swinging in the wind. If the sheriff doesn’t take the murder seriously, “Justice here takes many forms. For all I know, she may have already gotten all the justice she deserved” — Brigid decides to investigate on her own. Before long, she angers local ranchers who are dubbed “big sugars” because “they’re the guys with the money, and I think that makes them sweet.” Even the sheriff warns her, “Don’t stick your nose in anything.”
The glimpse of what life might have been like for women in the West is fascinating. But Brigids’ curiosity and common sense drive the story and lead her to a conclusion that will change the course of her life.
Nilima Rao’s debut historical mystery, A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI (Soho Crime, 288 pp., $25.95), introduces us to Sgt. Akal Singh, a 25-year-old detective, recently arrived from Hong Kong after a career derailment. He would rather be somewhere else – though he longs for India most of all.
Then a woman from a nearby plantation disappears and Akal gets the case. It becomes clear that this is far from an open disappearance, and soon Akal finds himself learning about the harrowing effects of colonialism, indentured labor and caste. Expertly juggling the weighty themes, Rao has what it takes to become a memorable serial detective in Akal.
Since I think every summer reading should include some older titles, I’d like to draw your attention to Sarah Caudwell’s first two mysteries, THIS IS HOW ADONIS WAS KILLED (Bantam, 288 pp., paperback, $18) And THE SHORTEST WAY TO HADES (Bantam, 272 pp., paperback, $18), originally published in 1981 and 1984, and now reissued with punchy new covers.
Both play the delightful Oxford don Hilary Tamar, of undetermined gender. I always recommend these books – and the two that will be reissued next year, “The Sirens Sang of Murder” and “The Sibyl in Her Grave” – to readers seeking intelligent, elegantly mannered mysteries. I hope these re-releases spur a Caudwell revival.