cover image False Tongues: A Callie Anson Mystery

False Tongues: A Callie Anson Mystery

Kate Charles. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (350p) ISBN 978-1-4642-0004-5

In Charles’s accomplished fourth Callie Anson mystery (after 2009’s Deep Waters), the Anglican curate faces a former lover and old friends at a religious retreat in Cambridge, as well as the less-than-enthusiastic family of her new fiancé, Mark Lombardi. A police-family liaison officer, Mark gets involved in investigating the knifing murder of teenager Sebastian Frost in London’s Paddington Green. Though Sebastian apparently had it all—popularity, brains, good looks, athletic ability—Det. Insp. Neville Stewart soon uncovers a darker side to his life in his relationships to schoolmates and technology. The interesting narrative approach of alternating Cambridge and London sections provides texture and commentary on family situations from various points of view. Some readers may be disappointed not to find a more direct connection between the case and Callie, but the toll of cyberbullying and the pressure to conform to social expectations is intelligently and poignantly rendered. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (Apr.)