A Room Full of Bones

An archeological site has turned up a medieval coffin, containing what are thought to be the bones of Archbishop Augustine.  Forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway is going to be involved in the opening of the coffin.  However, when she arrives at the museum for the opening, she finds a body alongside the coffin.

DCI Harry Nelson is called upon to investigate.  The body is that of the museum's curator, and he had a cache of drugs in his desk along with some very threatening letters.  Which was the reason for his murder?

Ruth's friend, Cathbad, has recommended that a friend of his stay at the little cottage next to hers out on the Saltmarsh.  Bob is an Aborigine, and he wants the skulls held by the museum returned to Australia.  Unfortunately, Cathbad's fingerprints have been found at the site of the museum curator's death.

Meantime, Ruth has been asked by the museum's owner to examine some bones that are in storage.  She is also at the opening of the coffin, where she discovers that the skeleton inside is that of a woman!  There was also a curse place by the Bishop on anyone who disturbed the coffin.  Is the curse what led to the death of the owner of the museum the following night?   It isn't long after this that Nelson, who was also at the opening of the coffin becomes seriously ill.

Can Nelson survive this mysterious illness?  What does his illness mean to the ongoing drug investigation?  Tension mounts as the reader is brought to the brink of death.  Author Elly Griffiths has provided the reader with a surprisingly good read full of mystery and spiritualism.  It was hard to put down.

Watch the World Burn

An elderly woman has had her hair burst into flames in a restaurant.  Troy Berrigan, a former police officer, and now the restaurant manager, manages to put it out.  However, the event is regarded as a crime.  The question is, what caused the fire?

Detectives Scott Hutchinson and Emma Gibson are the investigating officers.  Hutchinson's girlfriend, Detective Jill Jackson is working on her Masters in criminology, is interested in the case.

When Hutchinson is killed by a fire bomb, Jill goes into severe shock.  Her colleagues and federal officers vow to find the killer.  The Feds have been called in because they feel there might be a link to the killing of the elderly woman.

Meantime, Berrigan has some concerns about the son of the woman who burned in his restaurant.  After visiting him, he feels that there is something not right about how the man's wife had died quite a bit earlier.  Berrigan later finds that he has become suspect number one in the investigation of the two incendiary cases.  Fortunately, the Federal agent, Gabriel Delahunt, Jackson's friend had given him a heads up.

When Jackson returns from her sick leave she meets up with Delahunt to discuss the investigation into the two murders.  Delahunt is convinced that Berrigan isn't the prime suspect, but rather the son of the first victim.  Jackson is set to bring him in immediately.  However, Delahunt is also convinced that the suspect is up to other activities.  He wants to wait.  But how long can they wait before something serious happens.

Author Leah Giarratano has written another exciting thriller.  I found it hard to put down this novel.  A very good read.

No Sorrow to Die

DCI Bell and DS Alice Rowe have been called to a home where a gruesome murder has been committed.  A bed ridden man's throat has been slashed and a number of items have been stolen from the home.

Later a man is caught on camera using the credit card of the deceased.  Brought in he leads the investigating team to where he had found the wallet and subsequently thrown it in the river.  He never expected the police divers to come up with everything else, plus a knife.  However, Rowe has brought in another suspect whose prints are at the crime scene.

Despite having a suspect, DI Eric Manson finds out that the wife of the victim is having an affair, while Rowe is suspicious of her story about the night in question.  They need to query further.

Author Gillian Galbraith has put together a neat little murder mystery with a unique and surprising twist at the end.  A good, quick read.

The Coffin Trail

Daniel Kind and and his girlfriend Miranda have just purchased an old cottage in The Lake District.  It is an area that Daniel has history with.  They are giving up their former lives to move there.  Daniel had known a lad who lived there when they were both young.  The lad had supposedly killed a woman and died himself shortly after the murder.

Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett has just been assigned to create the Cumbria Cold Case team.  She picks DS Nick Lowther for her team, but has no say when retired superintendent Les Bryant from Yorkshire is assigned to it, too.  Four Detective Constables round out the team.

Settling in, Daniel begins to ask questions about the murder.  He doesn't believe his friend could have been a killer.  His questions seem to stir up a hornet's nest in the small community.  No one wants him asking those questions.  The community is further antagonised when Scarlett's team takes up the same cold case.  Scarlett and Lowther are surprised to find the body of a local farmer's wife in a sheep dip during their investigation.  She had been missing for a little over a day.  Was she the one hinting about knowing something?

Author Martin Edwards provides the reader with numerous suspects through this murder mystery and yet gives a surprising conclusion to the novel.  A real page turner, hard to put down despite its slow start.

Death on the Holy Mountain

Lord Francis Powerscourt has been asked by Earl Brandon to investigate the thefts of several paintings from his estates and neighbouring estates in Ireland. Is it a plan to extort money out of the landholders, could it be an attempt to frighten the landholders into leaving Ireland or is it intended simply as a way to raise money?

Powerscourt is not granted the Irish welcome he was expecting when he arrives in Ireland.  The first place he visits, the owner is downright hostile.  However, the reception at the second household is much more open.  While there, news arrives of another set of stolen paintings.  At the same time, Powerscourt's friend, Johnny Fitzgerald brings news of similar paintings for sale in New York.

When a fourth big house is invaded and the paintings stolen, the owner is all set on bringing in a contingent of Orangemen from the north.  Powerscourt gets him to delay that by a week so that the investigation can continue.  Shortly after this, an attempt is made on Powerscourt's life.  Later one of the paintings is returned, however, the faces in the painting have been changed to those of local Irish residents.

Matters take a turn for the worse when two women are abducted.  A confusing twist to the case occurs when the body of a young man, shot to death, is found atop the nearby holy mountain on the eve of a pilgrimage.  Powerscourt and Fitzgerald must now attain the release of the women, find the paintings and determine who killed the young men before the deadline is reached.

A good, quick read by David Dickinson.

Close to the Bone

Inspector Logan McRae has been called out to a murder scene where the victim has had a tire placed over his head and then set alight.  This is known as a necklace.  Pathology shows that the victim was strangled and knifed in addition to being burned.

DNA points to who the victim is.  However, when Logan and DS Lorna Chalmers speak to the family they realise that a mistake has been made.  The DNA belongs to the killer.  They now have to find him.  They do find him in the hospital, about to have his fingers amputated.  He had left his DNA because he was trying to help the victim.

McRae has other cases on his plate, one being a pair of missing teens.  He has also had someone leaving chicken bones on his doorstep.  It turns out what he thought were chicken bones are actually human finger bones.  Who and why?

McRae's investigation into the missing teens points to the possibility that they could be tied to the necklace murder.  Another victim is found in a vacant house, staked down to the floor and tortured, blood everywhere.  DCI Steel insists the culprit must be found.  It isn't going to be easy.

Author Stuart MacBride has written an intense thriller full of suspense with a wee surprise thrown in at the end.  A thoroughly good read.

Up the Down Staircase

Up the Down Staircase is a novel, written by a teacher, set in a fictitious school in New York City.  It gives the perspective of a new teacher saddled with unruly students who she is trying to reach through her teaching.  Also included are thoughts of other teachers and the students.

Written in 1963, Bel Kaufman's story still rings true 50 plus years later as any teacher can attest.  A must read for teachers.

The Unquiet Heart

London, 1946 and reporter Eve Copeland has come to PI Danny McRae because she feels that something doesn't add up in the Caldwell murders.  She wants to get in on some of his private investigations.  McRae decides to take her along on a raid intended to stop criminals from stealing silk from a warehouse in east London.  Surprisingly, Eve would become an integral part of the sting.

Eve next wants to get into a posh gambling den.  McRae is only too happy to oblige.  She doesn't realise what she is letting herself in for.  McRae has noticed that she has been tailed for a few weeks now.  Things get worse when she disappears.

McRae and his team try to find out what has happened to Eve.  It only results in him being beaten up and a threat being made to her for him to stop searching for her.  Shortly thereafter McRae is approached by Scotland Yard and the Secret Service; he is told that Eve is a spy and that she has gone to Berlin.  They want her back and they want McRae to bring her back.

Berlin is divided; the Russians had half and the other half is divided into three sectors controlled by the French, Brits and Americans.  The city is in bad shape from the Allied bombing.  What McRae finds out when he finally finds Eve shocks him.  She is Jewish and plans on exacting revenge.

Battle lines are drawn, the Cold War commences and a new Jewish state is formed. Author Gordon Ferris has created a very good thriller that has all of the above elements, plus a fair bit of criminality thrown in to enhance the excitement.  A very good read.

Yesterday's Papers

Lawyer Harry Devlin is approached on the steps of the court house by a man who wants to talk to him about a murder; one that occurred 30 years earlier.  The man is convinced that the wrong man was charged with the crime, and he knows that Devlin and his partner had purchased the law firm which defended the man.  He wants access to their papers.  The problem is, the man in question topped himself while in jail.

Devlin's interest is piqued.  He asks a reporter friend to check into some newspaper archives.   He also speaks to another lawyer, Kim Lawrence, about the case.  She has been involved in unjust cases in the past.  Devlin accesses the former lawyer's papers and feels that there is more to the case than what he has learned.

When the law office is broken into, Devlin wonders if they were after the file he has been researching.   When he finds the man who had informed him about the murder dead in his own home, Devlin has more questions arise in his mind.  Devlin meets with a woman who is able to provide an alibi for the supposed murderer.

The more he studies the case, the more Devlin comes to the realisation that he knows who the killer is.  However, some inopportune deaths leaves him confused.  How are they related to the case at hand?

Author Martin Edwards has written a mystery full of twists and turns, which at times leaves the reader confused as to who really is the killer in this whodunit.  A good read.

Land of the Silver Dragon

Lassair's sister, Goda, and her mother-in-law have been attacked in their home.  The mother-in-law was brutally murdered while Goda was injured.  Lassair has set out to help her sister.  The following day Hrype brings news of another attack at a nearby nunnery.  Fortunately no one was killed this time.  The nunnery is where Lassair's other sister lives.  Is the attacker after the women in Lassair's family?

Recent graves are the next thing under attack.  Lassair comes to the realisation that the intruder is now looking for her grandmother's grave.  When an aunt of Lassair is killed, her father determines that she must go to Cambridge to be in the safety of Gurdyman's house and continue here studies.

However, Gurdyman's house isn't as secure as Lassair's father had hoped.  The killer has followed her to Cambridge, but fortunately Gurdyman's house has a secret crypt where the two hid during the intrusion of the killer.  With no further attacks over a couple of months, Lassair feels that it is safe for her to return home.  Unfortunately for her, on the way home, she is kidnapped.  Taken to a ship, she has no idea of its destination.

After several days at sea, Lassair finds herself in Iceland.  The question is, why Iceland?  There she learns that she had been kidnapped for her own protection.  Safely returned home, Lassair feels that she is safe, only to be captured again.  This time she is quickly released, but with a threat hovering over her.

There is a lot of turmoil and trouble awaiting Lassair in the latest novel by Alys Clare about the healer of the fens.  A good, quick read.

Potsdam Station

In this sequel to "Stettin Station", we find that John Russell has just flown into Moscow, while his girlfriend, Effie, remains in Berlin, where she is busy helping Jews escape to Sweden. Meantime his son, Paul, is fighting the advancing Russians on the Eastern Front.

Russell hopes to travel with the Soviet army and be with it when it enters Berlin.  However, not long after arriving in Moscow, he is arrested.  A group of Jews that Effie helped escape have been captured by the Gestapo, so she and her young protege must leave their home in search of safety.  Returning to Berlin with new identities, they are arrested and taken to a Jewish prison.

Back in the USSR, Russell is accepted by the NKVD to serve on a mission to gather up atomic bomb secrets in Berlin.  As he prepares to be dropped into Berlin, the Russia offensive begins, and Paul is caught up in it.  In the waning days of April, 1945 each of them wonders whether they will ever see one another again.

Author David Downing has provided the reader with an excellent thriller that outlines the final days of the battle for Berlin.  A real page turner, well worth the read.

Bad Blood

DI Paul Hjelm and the rest of the international police team he is a member of are frustrated with a lack of action.  They are shaken out of their lethargy when their leader tells them that a murder of a Swedish citizen has occurred in the USA.  The culprit in question is a serial killer and he is now bound for Sweden.  Unfortunately the FBI don't know his identity, only that he is one of 163 passengers on the incoming flight.

Despite the team's attempt to identify the killer at passport control, he makes it past them.  Now they have to wait for the killer to act.  As they wait, they create a variety of hypotheses as to why the killer has come to Sweden.

When Hjelm and his partner, Chavez, access the victim's home computer, they find a file with quite a number of hate emails.  They are very revealing, but don't provide any information about the killer.   They are surprised when they figure out and confront the person behind the emails.

Some time later they go in search of an escaped criminal only to find him killed in the signature way.  It isn't long after this that the body of a young man is found in water, killed in the same manner.  The killer has definitely arrived.  Hjelm and another team member, Kerstin Holm, are sent to the USA to liaise with the FBI.  It is some time after going through the files that Hjelm comes to the realisation that their murderer is actually the son of the original killer.  It sets them off on a new track.

Meantime things are heating up in Sweden.  Members of the team come across another victim, the thing is, he is still alive; barely.  Hjelm and Holm are called back to Sweden to continue the hunt.

Author Arne Dahl continues to build up the tension in this thriller.  Things turn out to be not as they seem, and a surprising conclusion occurs.  A read that gets off to a slow start, but has an exciting finish.  A very good read, hard to put down.

Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

After being shot in the chest during his last case, Lord Francis Powerscourt has been asked by his wife to no longer be a detective.  He decides to write a book about the cathedrals in England.

The death of a British envoy in St. Petersburg brings the Foreign Service knocking at the Powerscourt door.  Powerscourt refuses to participate in any investigation.  Lady Lucy is finally persuaded to allow Powerscourt to go.  In St. Petersburg, Powerscourt learns all about the intrigues in the Russian court and a bit about the Russia-Japanese War currently underway.  However, he is no further ahead as to what the envoy's mission to Russia was.

Through his interpreter, Mikhail Shaporov, Powerscourt is told by the police that the document he has indicating the death of the envoy is a forgery.  The body of the envoy isn't in the morgues either, and the Russian Foreign Ministry denies that he had been in Russia in 1905.  He had been there previously, but not in 1905.  Unfortunately Powerscourt and Shaporov are witnesses to Bloody Sunday.

The following day Powerscourt was picked up by the Okhrana, the Russian secret police and treated to a view of their torture chambers.  He is surprised to find that the Okhrana have known all about the visitors to his home prior to his leaving for Russia.   Powerscourt is called back to London when the body of the wife of the dead envoy is discovered in suspicious circumstances.

Shortly after returning to St. Petersburg, Powerscourt is granted a meeting with the Tsar.  Will this meeting bring about the answers he is looking for?

Author David Dickinson spins an intriguing tale of murder, espionage and conspiracy in this thriller.  A very good pre-World War I thriller.

Children of the Revolution

The body of an elderly man has been found at the bottom of an abandoned railway cutting.  For some reason, the old man had five thousand pounds in cash in his pocket.  For this reason DCI Alan Banks has been called in.

The post-mortem reveals that the victim had been beaten before his death.  At a team meeting afterwards news is shared that the victim had plans which involved spending money; much more than the five thousand.  Banks' team begin to learn things about the victim; he had lost his job as a professor because he had been accused of asking a female student for sex.  Nothing was proven about the allegation, but it was enough to sack him.

Coincidences point towards a member of the gentry, Lady Chalmers, and when Banks questions her for a second time, he is warned off by his superiors.  This only serves to get his dander up.  However, it doesn't prevent his team from pursuing other leads.  Things keep coming back to the early 70s when the victim was at university, yet at the same time tied to events just a few years previous to the murder.

When Lady Chalmers is involved in an automobile accident, Banks wonders if another auto might have caused it.  What the accident reveals, however points Banks in an entirely different direction.

Author Peter Robinson has written an excellent murder mystery with plenty of plot twists, not revealing the murderer and reasons behind the killings until the final pages.  Hard to put down.

Blood Money

A woman has been assaulted in her own home and robbed of her valuables.  DS Bev Morriss, and DC Mac Tyler are looking into the incident; it is not the first in the area. Also, the frequency is increasing as is the violence involved in the attacks.  The team is concerned that the next one could be a murder inquiry.

It isn't long before there is a murder; of a man.  He had come home unexpectedly and was there to protect his wife when the intruder entered.  A day later, one of the previous victims commits suicide.  Superintendent Byford attributes this death to the killer, too.

Morriss is now the target of someone who has set out to upset her.  Her car has been damaged, a heart has been left on her doorstep and someone has been inside her house.  Just after this, the attacker of women steps it up a notch, brutalising another woman so badly that she dies.

Late in the investigation Morriss and Tyler receive information that surprises them and puts a whole new light on the investigation. Then comes the news that links the victims together.  Now, they just need to bring in the culprit, but that isn't going to be easy.

Once again Maureen Carter has written an excellent murder mystery, a read you won't want to put down.

Night Rounds

Gotesberg's Lowander Hospital has gone dark, the backup generator hasn't kicked in and a nurse is missing.  When the security guard and the police arrive, the missing nurse is found draped across the generator, dead and the ICU nurse claims that she has seen a ghost of a former nurse who she claims is the murderer.

Superintendent Sven Andersson and Detective Inspector Irene Huss not only have a strangled nurse on their hands, but a patient on a respirator died as a result of the power outage.  That evening one of the other nurses doesn't show up for her shift.  When Huss checks at the missing nurse's flat she is not there either.  It appears that she planned leaving for just a short time as her cat was still in her flat as was her passport.

Huss begins to wonder if the patient who died wasn't the intended victim rather than the nurse.  Did the nurse have to die because she might have recognised the killer?  It isn't long afterwards that the body of the only potential witness is found in a culvert.  She had been murdered, too.  A week after the initial murders, the body of the missing nurse is discovered; she too has been murdered.

Author Helene Tursten hints at possible serial killers in this novel, but it isn't until the final chapter that the reader comes face-to-face with a brutal killer when an attempt is made on Huss' life.  A good, intense read.