Mystery Notes
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 3/27/2006
MAY PUBLICATIONS
Hardboiled Brooklyn, an all-original anthology edited by Reed Farrel Coleman, offers 17 noirish tales by such notable crime authors as Jason Starr, S.J. Rozan, Jim Fusilli, Peter Spiegelman and Peter Blauner. Fans of Akashic's similarly themed Brooklyn Noir should be thrilled. (Bleak House [www.bleakhousebooks.com], $15.95 paper 220p ISBN 1-932557-17-2)
Karen MacInerney's appealing debut, Murder on the Rocks: A Gray Whale Inn Mystery, introduces Natalie Barnes, a Texan who opens a bed-and-breakfast on a Maine island. Blurbs from Cynthia Riggs and Lea Wait will signal their readers that this is a new cozy author worth investigating. (Midnight Ink [www.MidnightInkBooks.com], $12.95 paper 312p ISBN 0-7387-0908-5)
In D.L. Birchfield's amusing Black Silk Handkerchief: A Hom-Astubby Mystery, the first in a series, Oklahoma Choctaw lawyer Hom-Astubby, after befriending a stray dog while on vacation in Colorado, gets into a heap of trouble involving a huge manhunt and murder. The author's novel Field of Honor won the Western Writers of America Spur Award. (Univ. of Oklahoma, $26.95 368p ISBN 0-8061-3751-7)
The Detections of Francis Quarles, edited by John Cooper, collects 41 clever short stories by British master Julian Symons (1912–1994). While too brief to develop Quarles as a character, these entertaining tales offer classic fair-play puzzles sure to please traditional mystery fans. (Crippen & Landru [www.crippenlandru.com], $29 204p ISBN 1-932009-44-2; $19 paper ISBN 1-932009-45-0)
