Category Archives: mystery

Fifty-Four Pigs, by Philipp Schott***-****

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3.75 stars, rounded upward.

Fifty-Four Pigs is the first in the Dr. Bannerman vet mystery series, set in a tiny town in Manitoba, Canada. My thanks go to Net Galley and ECW for the audio review copy. This book is for sale now.

Peter Bannerman is a quirky guy, a rural veterinarian with particular tastes and a fierce loyalty to his friends. When his good buddy Tom’s barn is torched in the middle of the night, killing all 54 of his pigs and leaving behind a mysterious human corpse, the Mounties want to question him, but he’s nowhere to be found. Has Tom been killed? Kidnapped? Perhaps he’s on the run, panic-stricken. Peter is eager to try out his amateur sleuthing skills on this case; Kevin, his brother-in-law as well as the local law enforcer, is equally eager that he should not. Yet, Peter is concerned that his friend, whom he knows to be a decent, peaceable soul, could never commit murder, and who surely wouldn’t harm his own pigs. If he doesn’t clear Tom’s name, who will?

This novel is a cozy mystery, despite all the dead porkers (about whom there is blessedly little detail.) It’s humorous in places, and is already building a budding fan base. I love Peter’s dogs, Merry and Pippin; the latter goes just about everywhere with him, and is helpful when push comes to shove. Some of the vet cases make me snicker out loud; I’m gardening as I listen, and hope the neighbors won’t think I’ve lost my mind, all alone and cackling in my lettuce bed.

As for me, I find the first half to be a bit on the slow side, with more extraneous details that aren’t directly relevant to the story than I would prefer. However, I usually am not a cozy mystery lover, either. The second half of the story ramps up the suspense and the intrigue, and when Bannerman heads out to the ice fishermen’s shacks with a storm in the immediate forecast, it’s impossible to put this book down.

The audio is performed by actor Miles Meili, and I find his narrative to be an acquired taste; he tends to sound wryly amused even during the serious parts of the story, and during the first half, I wish wholeheartedly for a print version to refer to. However, once the excitement begins, I can’t think about anybody except poor Peter, who’s out there in that raging storm, and so Mr. Meili’s stylized delivery no longer distracts me.   

The ending is hilarious.

I recommend this book to cozy readers, and I do lean toward the print version, but if you are an audio-or-nothing reader, go ahead and get it in the form you love best.

Overboard, by Sara Paretsky*****

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Sara Paretsky is one of my all-time favorite writers; I’ve been reading her Victoria Warshawski detective novels for most of my adult life. Paretsky is one of four living authors to have received both the Grand Masters Award from the Mystery Writers of America and Cartier Diamond Dagger Award from the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain. She, together with the late Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller, have pioneered the image of women detectives in fiction, departing from the femme fatale of yesteryear who could only reveal the truth by using her sexuality to coax disclosures from men, instead creating capable women professionals that can ferret out the truth using their brains and bulldog persistence. A sympathetic cop friend tells Vic, “You’re a pit bull, Warshawski. You’ll go into the ring with anyone, as long as they’re at least three times your size.”

My thanks go to Net Galley and William Morrow for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

If I knew nothing of this author and her scrappy detective, the first line in the book would have reeled me in: “It was Mitch who found the girl.” As it is, I already know that Mitch is one of the two dogs she shares with her elderly neighbor friend, Mr. Contreras, and I feel as if I am greeting an old comrade.

The girl in question is in bad shape, and she doesn’t speak. For a while her identity is a mystery. Vic would be happy to offload her to medical professionals and get back to her own life; she’s got a lot of clients, and Lotty, her doctor friend that serves as a mother-figure in Vic’s life, is urging her to investigate the rash of attacks on the local synagogue. She doesn’t need more work.

But the cops—generally not friends of Vic’s at the best of times—are ready to haul Vic in. In fact, given their track record, Vic is amazed at the attention the girl is getting. All manner of monied movers and shakers show intense interest in the girl, and it makes Vic suspicious.

She’s right.

A sixteen year old boy comes to her office, asking her to look into a dicey situation involving his father. He believes his dad is in danger, and his parents won’t tell him anything. And so, there’s this kiddo, and there’s the girl: “Two teens, two life-threatening secrets—I have to assume they’re connected somewhere, somehow.”

She’s right again.

Before we know it, her apartment and office have been searched and bugs are left; her phone is being tracked; and Vic has to resolve the case in order to get her life back. She’s jumping in the cold river to elude capture, hiding in the least likely places, and keeping the kids safe from the forces that would harm them. Her attorney chuckles that “You get in over your head faster than Houdini in a water tank.”

He’s right, too.

When I opened this galley, I was already reading a handful of others that I liked, and figured I’d put this one into the rotation, but as often happens when I read Paretsky, everything else sat untouched until I’d torn through this book feverishly, as if the lives of Vic, her clients, and Chicago’s working class depended upon it.

Highly recommended to those that love strong detective fiction; feminists; and champions of the working class.

Two Nights in Lisbon, by Chris Pavone*****

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“Once first blood is drawn, sharks make quick work.”

Chris Pavone (Puh-vo-KNEE) writes the best thrillers around. I read his second novel, The Accident, in 2015, thanks to the First Reads program on Goodreads, and I liked it so well that I ferreted out a copy of his debut thriller, The Expats at my favorite used bookstore. I’ve read and reviewed everything he’s published since then, and I’ll tell you right now, Two Nights in Lisbon is his best.

My thanks go to Net Galley; Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux; and Macmillan Audio for the review copies. This book will be available to the public May 24, 2022.

The beginning doesn’t impress me much; a couple is in Portugal and he leaves before she gets up; says he’ll be right back; and he disappears. In real life this would be a big deal, but in a thriller, it feels almost generic (though it actually isn’t.)  Ariel—the stranded wife—is beside herself with worry, and she goes to the police and to the U.S. Embassy, but they all blow her off. It hasn’t been 24 hours yet, there’s no sign of foul play, and face it honey, sometimes husbands wander. She carries on until we’re a quarter of the way into the book, and this part of it could probably stand to be tightened up some. But this story draws the full five stars from me, because after this, Pavone makes up for it, and more.

Next comes the ransom demand. Nameless, faceless baddies contact her. They have her husband; they want three million dollars, and they want it fast.

I won’t spoil the plot for you, but I’ll say this much: this plot is original, and as thrillers go, also plausible. There’s never a moment where I stop believing. And there’s a wonderfully satisfying measure of Karma attached at the end.

The thing that makes me love this author so hard, and that is particularly strong this time around, is his deep, consistent respect for women. In this era of MeToo and mansplaining, it takes a lot of chutzpah for a man to write a female protagonist, and what’s more, he includes a rape scene, which I trust no man for EVER, except for Pavone right here right now. He tells it the way a woman would tell it, and—all you other male authors out there, listen up—there’s not one moment where the assault feels even a tiny bit sexy. And so, at the beginning of this particular scene I tensed, waited to be outraged, or disappointed, or whatever—and then relaxed, because he gets it. This guy gets it.

Ariel makes the occasional small mistake, but no large ones. She is intelligent, organized, and capable of looking out for herself, even in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language. The reveal at the end makes me do a fist pump. Yesss.

The pace never flags after the first quarter, and there are occasional moments that make me guffaw. This is a story that brooks no tolerance of the wealthy, the elite, the entitled.

I received both the audio and digital review copies, and so I alternated the two, although I listened the majority of the time, backtracking for quotes and other salient details for the purpose of this review. January LaVoy is our narrator, and she does an outstanding job. You can’t go wrong with either version, but I would give the edge to the audio version, which is immensely entertaining.

Highly recommended.

I’ll Be You, by Janelle Brown***

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Janelle Brown has written several successful novels, among them Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things, both of which I read and reviewed; I rated both five stars. So I was greatly looking forward to I’ll Be You, anticipating the same sort of page turner I associate with this writer. Sadly, that’s not what I found. Though it has some nice moments, the pacing doesn’t measure up, and the whole thing is burdened with trite story elements and devices.

Nevertheless, my thanks go to Random House and Net Galley for the review copy. This book will be available to the public April 26, 2022.

The premise: Samantha and Elli are twins, and they grow up in Southern California as child actors, with the sort of rabid fan base that makes it hard to go out in public. Sam loves acting, but Elli doesn’t, and as they grow up, Elli leaves it all behind, attends college, then marries a successful career man and buys a home in the ‘burbs. They can’t have children of their own, but adopt Charlotte, who is now two.

Samantha discovers the horrible truth, that her skills were good enough when she was a child actor; twins are popular in the industry, because child labor laws prohibit any child from working more than half a day. Identical twins can each work a half day, and so filming can take place all day. Once she is grown and looking for a single, adult career, however, she finds roles hard to come by. The drug habit she’s developed as an adolescent burgeons into something larger, more horrible, and she’s been in and out of clinics ever since, sometimes on her sister’s dime.

Now Elli has taken off and left Charlotte with their mother, who is having trouble keeping up. Mom calls Sam, figuring that helping care for Charlotte is the very least that Sam owes their family. And Sam comes. Soon it becomes clear to Sam that Elli isn’t just off on a weekend retreat, but has been absorbed into a cult; in order to save her sister, she has to (yeah, this again) pretend to be her. Meanwhile, Mom is no help whatsoever, caught in a combination of denial and family roles, in which Elli is the good daughter, and Sam isn’t.

So we have here just about every overused element I’ve seen in the last ten years. We have the alcoholic addict that wants to drink but mustn’t, needs to use, but must resist. Over. And over. And then we have Bad Mama, a very popular mechanism of late. Mothers can rarely be good guys in today’s novels, and they’re (we’re,) such low-hanging fruit. As if that isn’t sufficient, we also have the twins-changing-roles trope, slightly modified. Even the name—Elli—can anybody out there write a novel, oh please, in which the protagonist is not Allie, or Alex, or Ellie, or some other variant on this same, eternal name?

I made it through the first forty percent or so withholding judgment, because I figured this author is one that can pull it out of the water and make it shine. But I realize this book is not up to snuff when I see how frequently I am setting it aside to read my other galleys. When I read the other two of Brown’s novels mentioned above, I started them, stuck with them to the exclusion of other books, finished them fast, and reviewed them. This time I would often consider opening it, and then decide on another book instead. Finally, I resolved to finish it, and so I did, but as you can see, I wasn’t impressed.

Brown is a capable novelist, and I’m not giving up on her. Anybody can have a dud someplace in their career. But as for this book, I advise you to read it cheap or free, if you read it at all.

The Golden Couple, by Greer Hendricks*****

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Audio Narrated by Karissa Vacker and Marin Ireland

 My thanks go to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the invitation to read and review. The Golden Couple is the third novel I’ve read by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, and it’s the best so far. This book becomes available to the public, in print and in audio, March 8, 2022. Those that enjoy a solid psychological thriller should order it right now.

We have three major characters. The first is Avery, the therapist, and she is the only one to use the first person, so if we have to choose one character as protagonist, she’s the one. The other two are Marissa and Matthew, two halves of the married couple she is counseling. The narrative shifts between them, with the lion’s share going to Avery and Marissa, and less to Matthew.

Before we go farther, I will tell you that when I learn that Avery is a therapist, my initial reaction is the eye roll. Seriously? Another therapist, as in An Anonymous Girl? Can we have a little variety here, maybe. And suspicious type that I am, I think I smell a good writing team becoming hacks, too comfortable with a formula. But oh no no no, that’s not at all what is happening here! This is nowhere near the same story.

The premise is that Marissa wants to come in with Matthew for counseling. She has cheated on him—just once—and she wants to tell him, but she is afraid of his reaction. She treasures her marriage, and the little family they have created with their son, eight year old Bennett. She doesn’t want him to leave her, and he has a bit of a temper. She’s come to ask a pro for help, and has heard fine things about Avery’s work. Avery has a ten-step method that she swears will help every couple, whether it’s to find a way to stay together, or the best way to uncouple. She believes the marriage can be saved.

Now, Avery, our therapist, is an odd duck. She’s lost her license to practice as a psychologist because of some unconventional methods, and we learn this right at the outset, so we’re already on the back foot, watching to see if she does something hinky. She seems like she may be a bit sketchy, and the couple seem almost too good to be true, both ready to do whatever it takes to salvage their relationship and move forward. And yet, clearly, not all is as it seems.

I can’t tell you more than that. You don’t want a lot of information going in. Because this is a work of suspense, you can’t guess who the baddy is by keeping track of the facts as they are revealed; just sit back, and enjoy the ride.

I also received the audio version, and I alternated my reading between it and the review copy on my Kindle. Voice actors Karissa Vacker and Marin Ireland do a fine job; it’s really a toss up as to which version is better, so go with the medium you most enjoy.

Highly recommended to those that like the genre.

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You, by Ariel Delgado Dixon***-****

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I was invited to read and review by St. Martin’s Press and Net Galley, and it sounded like a winner; a debut to boot. I am disappointed not to be able to read further, because this is clearly a writer with talent, and the story is an interesting one thus far.

Here’s the thing:  I see foreshadowing that suggests the family dog is going to meet with a lot of pain, and I am not up for it.

There’s been a trend away from this lately, and I suspect this is why: there’s a lot of push-back against it these days. There was a time when the sacrifice of a (fictitious) pet was considered a lesser evil. Rather than kill or torture a character that the protagonist loves and the reader may have bonded with, take out the dog, cat, horse, etc. It’s sinister foreshadowing, but nobody is dead yet. But these days, animals in general and pets in particular are out of bounds. If a writer goes there at all, it must be well in the past and with as few details as possible. Less is more, and usually, none is even better.

Were it not for the animal cruelty that other reviewers have referenced, both with the dog and the wilderness camp, I would gladly finish and review this galley. I wish the author well, and look forward to seeing what they publish next, assuming this deal breaker doesn’t make it into their next endeavor.

My rating isn’t based on much because I didn’t get far; four stars is the rating I give most often, but this time it should be taken with a grain of salt.

City of the Dead, by Jonathan Kellerman*****

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The Alex Delaware series began in 1985 with the publication of When the Bough Breaks, and it’s been going strong ever since. City of the Dead is number 37, and in many ways, its style is closer to the original than more recent editions, and I consider this a good thing. My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book is available for purchase today.

The story begins with a moving van, and two drivers looking to beat that nasty Los Angeles traffic by starting early. They’re making their way through an upscale residential neighborhood when something hurtles toward them in the dark, and the van makes a sickening crunch as it rolls over it. It’s a man, clad in his birthday suit alone; nobody can see the face anymore, because that’s where the wheels went. Once it becomes clear that the man was already dead when he was tossed into the street, Detective Lieutenant Milo Sturgis is called in. Milo is a homicide cop; Alex Delaware, our protagonist, is a child psychologist as well as Milo’s best friend. Milo often consults with Alex—sometimes officially, sometimes not—when a case has tricky psychological contours.

There are two threads to our plot. The first is the aforementioned corpse under the van; a small trail of blood leads the police to the house from which it came, where they find another body, that of the woman that lived there. There are all sorts of twists and turns; the woman turns out to be someone Alex knows slightly from a case in which he testified, but the man proves much harder to identify.  The second thread is more straightforward, a custody case he’s been asked to evaluate for the court. Ultimately, there is some overlap between the two threads, and this is not something I can recall seeing in other books in the series. It’s very well done.

One thing I often forget between Delaware novels is how funny Kellerman can be. In this case, the story unfolds fast, and it isn’t until about the 70 percent mark that the humor is interjected. Delaware and Sturgis are interviewing a couple of enormous bodyguards, and the scene makes me snicker out loud. The pacing never flags, and there is a lot of dialogue that crackles and makes the pages turn

There are two elements I’ve complained about in recent Delaware novels. The first is the sordid stuff; kinky sex that comes off as a bit seedy and leaves me with a sour gut. None of that this time! I’m so pleased. The second is the unrealistic elements in which Alex does way too much cop stuff for a civilian. There have been times, in other books, where Alex tackles bad guys, or is given a Kevlar vest, and when that happens, the magic is compromised. It makes me think about the author, because I’ve stopped believing 100 percent in the characters. Again, that is scaled way back here. In fact, there’s one instance where Alex suggests that he be the one to entice a suspect into giving up a coffee cup or something else containing DNA, and Milo shuts that down. It’s not necessary, and they’re not doing that.

The last several Delaware novels have been four stars from me, because although I did enjoy them, the elements that I just mentioned kept me from going all in. This time I feel everything was exactly right. You can jump in if you’re new to the series, but once you do, you’ll want to go back for the others. Highly recommended.

Psycho by the Sea, by Lynne Truss*****

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Lynne Truss is hilarious, but with this fourth installment of the Constable Twitten series, she has outdone herself. My thanks go to Net Galley and Bloomsbury for the review copy. This book is riotously funny, and it’s for sale now.

Truss first came on my radar with her monstrously successful nonfiction grammar primer, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. A decade later I began reviewing, and one of my first reviews was for Cat Out of Hell, and later, the first in the Constable Twitten series, A Shot in the Dark, followed by the second, The Man That Got Away. I somehow missed the review copy for the third, Murder by Milk Bottle, which I discovered when I received the review copy for this fourth in the series; after sulking for a bit, I took myself to Seattle Bibliocommons and checked it out so that I’d be up to date when I began reading this one. It proved to be a good idea.

I tell you all this so you’ll see why I thought I had this author figured out. She had proven to have a distinctive, rather odd fiction writing style, which began in a sort of corny, groaning, oh-my-God-is-this-the-best-you-can-do style, but then sneakily grew better and funnier until by the second half, I’d be laughing my butt off. So as I open Psycho by the Sea, I have fortified myself to give Truss a minute or two to warm up. It will be funny, I am sure, but probably not just yet.

Surprise! This time, Truss had me laughing right out of the gate.

For the uninitiated, this satirical series is set in Brighton, a coastal resort town in England, in the 1950s. Our protagonist, Constable Twitten, is brilliant but irritating. He joins a small force that consists of Chief Inspector Steine, who has, until recently, been more interested in boosting tourism by pretending that Brighton has no crime, than in breaking up the formidable organized crime gang that runs amok, than in solving any of the crimes that have been committed. That was true until the last installment, when he inadvertently covered himself in glory and is now basking in the limelight, some of it literal as he is invited to speak on television or receive yet another award for his cleverness and courage. We also have Sergeant Brunswick, who would solve crimes gladly if he weren’t so everlastingly stupid; instead, he yearns to go undercover, even when there is no earthly purpose in it; when he does, he always manages to be shot in the leg at least once.

By now the readers know that the cleaning lady in charge of the station is a criminal mastermind. Mrs. Groynes is part cleaner, part den mother, and part overlord, and she makes herself loved and indispensable by showing up with cake, providing constant cups of tea, and listening to the cops to make sure that her operation is nowhere close to being discovered. In the first of the series, Twitten discovers what Groynes has been up to, but not a single, solitary cop or civilian will believe him. He’s new, after all, and they’ve known Palmyra Groynes forever. Mrs. Groynes, a crime lord? Don’t be ridiculous!

Now it seems that Palmyra has a competitor, someone that wants her turf and is willing to mow down her operatives in order to take it. I never would have seen this coming, and it’s an ingenious development. Old characters come back, and a new one, a formidable secretary sent down from London, turns the cop shop into a much more legitimate enterprise, and also sends Groynes packing. Even Twitten wants her back.

My favorite moment is when Twitten is being held at gunpoint, and he is so pedantic and obnoxious that he bores his assailant out of shooting him.

Not only does this book hit my funny bone right away, it also features a more complex, well balanced plot, and more character development. Until now, I had assumed no real character development was being attempted, because it’s satire, satire, satire, but now, it appears one can do both, and Truss does both bally splendidly.

“Flipping hedgehogs!” You have to get this book, but it will be more enjoyable if you read the other three first. Highly recommended.

Hypnosis is for Hacks, by Tamara Berry****

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Eleanor Wilde is a sham medium, a fraud who’s used her dramatic talents and the trust of her clients to bilk them. But lately things have changed; she has received intelligence from the great beyond, specifically from her deceased sister. As a businesswoman that now resides in a small town in the UK and doesn’t want her neighbors to hate her, she’s shifted most of her business to herbal cures and such. As it happens, this doesn’t keep all hell from busting loose.

My thanks go to Kensington Books and Net Galley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Eleanor–you may call her Ellie—is the protagonist in a satirical cozy mystery series, and this is the fourth. I read and reviewed the first two, but somehow missed out on the third. The first two took place in a tiny village where the ruling family lives in an honest-to-goodness castle. She went there, in the first in the series, to conduct a bogus séance, but instead fell in love with Nicholas, heir to the estate. Now the castle is in need of serious repairs. It’s summer, and the castle is hot enough to be uninhabitable, and so Ellie accompanies the elderly Vivian, matriarch of the castle, to the seaside. Her brother Liam, who is visiting, joins them. And once there, all sorts of things go wrong. We have a menacing, possessed doll that reappears in or near Ellie’s room, no matter what she does to destroy it, and a sinister figure from Ellie’s checkered past shows up as well. And of course, of course, of course, Ellie witnesses a murder shortly after arriving, but nobody will believe her.

I came away of two minds about this particular installment. The thing I’ve appreciated most about this series is that Berry’s writing is hilarious, and whenever an obvious plot device is utilized, it’s done in such an over-the-top manner that we can imagine the author winking and guffawing. Nothing here is to be taken seriously. In the past there’s been very little character development, and I was okay with that, because I wasn’t looking for great literature; I was looking for a laugh.

Here I find some changes. There’s less humor, although two particular bits, one involving lobsters and another involving, per the title, hypnosis, made me snicker. But I also find more character development. Realistically speaking, a series can’t last long if there’s no character development, and so I’m pleased to see Berry adding a bit of depth, but at the same time, what I really want is to laugh out loud. We live in tense times, and there’s a growing body of evidence that we live longer if we laugh. A silly, escapist novel that lets us forget current events entirely for a brief while, forget our own troubles, whatever they may be, and sit back and howl at what our clever author has cooked up, is worth more than many can imagine.

Nonetheless, this story is better by far than most of what’s out there within the humor genre, and I recommend it to you. Now…where’s that cat?

Autopsy, by Patricia Cornwell*****

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Autopsy is number 25 in the Kay Scarpetta series, the first forensic thrillers ever to see print. This series began in 1990, and I have read every single one, but this is the first time I’ve scored a review copy. My thanks go to William Morrow and Net Galley.

When the series began, Scarpetta was the chief medical examiner in Virginia. When last we saw her, she was working in Massachusetts, but now she’s come full circle, brought back to her old position in order to root out corruption and restore the office to the integrity it held when last Scarpetta was in charge. She didn’t expect it to be easy, and it surely isn’t.

There are long running characters that have been so well developed over the years that I almost feel as if I would know them on the street. Her husband, Benton Wesley, holds a sensitive position within the FBI, and the necessary secrecy and sudden need to pack a bag and go somewhere has led to marital tension over the course of the series, but not so much this time. Kay’s niece, Lucy, is more like a daughter; she has been estranged from her mother at times, a high-strung, self-absorbed woman that looks out for number one every minute of every day. The mother—Dorothy—is now married to Pete Marino, with whom Scarpetta has worked closely for the length of the series, and they live nearby.

At this juncture, new or inconstant readers may wonder if there’s any point to jumping into a book this far into the series. I read it with that question in mind, and whereas you won’t have the background and depth of context that faithful fans possess, you can understand everything that happens here; Cornwell doesn’t burden the reader with assumed knowledge.  And if you are a new reader, likely as not, you’ll find yourself headed to the library or bookstore to pick up others from this series. It’s that addictive.

The only background information that might make a difference is that from the outset, Kay’s whole family (except Dorothy, of course) fears for her well-being. A murder occurs in the area, and the victim is a neighbor of Pete and Dorothy’s. Immediately, there’s this sense of urgency, and it’s more than one would ordinarily expect. A neighbor has been killed; the circumstances are weird, and we don’t know whodunit; everyone is edgy about personal security, and again—especially regarding Kay’s safety. So let me help you out, if you’re new: over several of the most recent episodes, someone has attempted to kill Kay, nearly succeeding more than once, and though the occasional thug has been caught, the schemer behind the attempts is still out there somewhere. The narrative makes no specific references to any of this, which I appreciate. It’s obnoxious when a book costs as much as new books do these days, for the author to insert what amount to advertisements to buy her other books. But for those not in the know: If the beginning seems a little overwrought, that’s why.

Add to this that the old guard is still entrenched in Kay’s workplace, with people whispering behind her back, and her secretary clearly plotting against her. She’s just arrived, but she is on the back foot, trying to find out what’s going on and who can be trusted, and trying to establish her own authority without making enemies unnecessarily. As I read, I find myself urging her to assert herself. Because to me, Scarpetta isn’t a fictional character at all. I believe in this character, and I believe in Benton, Lucy, and Marino, too. I’ve known them longer than a lot of people I see in real life, after all.

Those of us that read a lot of mysteries, thrillers, and so forth become accustomed to timeworn plot devices. I have a little list of things I hate to find in books of this genre, and Cornwell avoids them all. There is no alcoholic protagonist that just wants a drink, a drink, a drink. There’s no kidnapping of the protagonist and stuffing her in the trunk (or backseat, or whatever,) nor does this happen to any of her loved ones. Scarpetta is not being framed for a murder she didn’t commit, nor is anyone she loves.

Instead, we get an autopsy in outer space, supervised remotely by Scarpetta. How cool is that?

One other aspect of this book, and this series, that I love, is that there is just enough interesting information included about forensic investigation without the story turning into some tedious science lecture, as I have found in books scribed by Cornwall’s imitators.

The pacing is swift, the dialogue crackles, and a new character, Officer Fruge, is introduced. Hers is the last word in the book, and for some reason, it made me laugh out loud, a first for this series.

Welcome home, Scarpetta.