Spy Glass
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Maria V. Snyder, Mira, $13.95 paper (432p) ISBN 978-0-7783-2847-6 9780778328476
Fantasy and romance jostle uneasily in Snyder's third Glass Magic adventure. Sassy adolescent heroine Opal Cowen sacrificed her magical powers by draining off some of her blood in Sea Glass. Now she hopes to reverse the process, but someone has stolen her blood. While navigating the inevitable love triangle, Opal launches herself into a dicey spy-training program, equipped with a future-telling spy glass and her faithful steed, Quartz. Opal's sacrifice is also Snyder's, and the loss of power is paralleled: without the appealing glassblowing lore of earlier books, Opal's frenetic dual quests to recapture her magic and decide between two hunky lovers loses much of its originality, reducing this limited-vocabulary novel to a superficial and conventional young adult thriller. (Sept.)
Hunting for Hemingway: A DD McGil Literati Mystery
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Diane Gilbert Madsen, Midnight Ink (www.midnightinkbooks.com), $14.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-7387-1953-5 9780738719535
A real-life literary loss—in December 1922, Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, left a valise at a Paris train station containing manuscripts of 22 stories, the beginning of a novel, and 20 poems—provides the enticing hook for Madsen's uneven second mystery featuring Chicago insurance investigator DD (Daphne December) McGil. DD is shocked to learn that an ex-boyfriend of hers, noted Hemingway expert David Barnes, has received the missing valise from an anonymous source. After the discovery's reported on the news, David's shot dead. DD, who recently visited David, becomes a suspect, and the Hemingway manuscripts (or are they forgeries?) vanish again. As DD works to clear her name, she gets lucky in the helpful hunk department with Mitch Sinclair, a computer expert assisting her on a case involving stolen software. Unfortunately, this second case lacks the interest of the search for the Hemingway treasure. A lackluster denouement doesn't do the premise justice. (Sept.)
Murder in Caleb's Landing: A Third-Culture Kid Mystery
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D-L Nelson, Five Star, $25.95 (364p) ISBN 978-1-59414-897-2 9781594148972
In this intriguing first in a new series from Nelson (Running from the Puppet Master), Annie Young, a 33-year-old contract tech writer born in the U.S. who's spent most of her life in Europe, returns to the States with her Geneva-based parents after her father inherits a house in Caleb's Landing, Mass. There her father and some of his friends persuade Annie, a passionate historian, to make a CD about "the founding of America the way it really was," but the program she produces, previewed at the town's elementary school, offends many with its evenhanded depiction of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Meanwhile, in the basement of their new house, Annie and her father discover a skeleton dressed in pre–Civil War rags and a diary written by a runaway slave. Later, Annie and her mother try to save a young woman from an abusive husband. The action moves at a fast clip to a dramatic and surprising conclusion. (Sept.)
The Emerald Cat Killer
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Richard A. Lupoff, Minotaur, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-312-64813-8 9780312648138
Lupoff's eighth and possibly final mystery featuring insurance investigator Hobart Lindsey and Berkeley, Calif., homicide detective Marvia Plum (after 1997's The Radio Red Killer) will please series fans more than first-timers. Lindsey's old boss from the Special Projects Unit of International Surety calls him out of retirement to deal with a plagiarism case. The widow of murdered crime writer Gordon Simmons claims that a hard-boiled novel, The Emerald Cat, by an unknown author is a thinly disguised version of an unpublished manuscript that had been on Simmons's PC—and that whoever stole it is also responsible for his death. Since the first chapter reveals the killer's identity, the main interest centers on the relationship between Lindsey and his former lover, Plum, with whom his inquiries bring him into contact. Some may find Lupoff's efforts to present the killer's grim circumstances unconvincing, but his glimpses into the sordid side of book publishing ring true. (Sept.)
Wicked Witch Murder: A Lucy Stone Mystery
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Leslie Meier, Kensington, $24 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2929-8 9780758229298
Wiccan shopkeeper Diana Ravenscroft and her cat familiar, Piewocket, stir up trouble in Tinker's Grove, Maine, in Meier's clever 17th Lucy Stone mystery (after 2009's Mother's Day Murder). Soon after Lucy, "a hardheaded reporter" for the town's weekly newspaper, receives a reading from Lady Diana, high priestess of the Silver Coven, warning her of approaching danger, Lucy and her Labrador, Libby, stumble over a burned corpse during a woodland walk. The victim turns out to be the Silver Coven's Malcolm Malebranche, a magician whom Diana believed to be in England. Later, Lucy's two teenage daughters, Sara and Zoe, and Abby, the daughter of Lucy's new neighbor, religious zealot Ike Stoughton, become entranced by the bewitching Diana. When Ike's ill wife dies, Ike blames the high priestess. As Abby sickens, Lucy feels increasing pressure to find out what's going on. The intrepid journalist uncovers no magic in the dark heart of murder in this neat little cozy. (Sept.)
The Detroit Electric Scheme
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D.E. Johnson, Minotaur, $24.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-64456-7 9780312644567
Grief and pain dominate Johnson's downbeat debut, set in Detroit in 1910. When Will Anderson, who works for his father's electric car company, finds the body of John Cooper, who's engaged to Elizabeth, Will's former love, crushed by a hydraulic press in the factory's machining room one night, he flees in panic. Will realizes the circumstantial evidence, including blood on his clothes, is against him, and the cops would be happy to beat a confession out of a likely suspect. Will alerts Elizabeth that John has been murdered and she's in danger, but she spurns his offer of help. Beneath the veneer of neat, progressive Detroit, Will discovers corruption and brutality. Meanwhile, Will's own alcoholism doesn't make it easy for him to think through his difficulties. Real-life automotive pioneers like chirpy Edsel Ford and the bullying Dodge brothers provide lively walk-ons, but readers will struggle to empathize with the book's sad-sack hero. (Sept.)
The Tale of Oat Cake Crag
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Susan Wittig Albert, Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-425-23661-1 9780425236611
Albert's charming seventh Beatrix Potter tale (after 2009's The Tale of Applebeck Orchard) finds Beatrix at Hill Top Farm in the Lake District, where she has taken refuge from her parents, who she knows will disapprove of her secret engagement to solicitor Will Heelis just as they disapproved of her engagement six years earlier to her editor, Norman Warne, who died before the two could marry. Meanwhile, Beatrix and the local birds and animals, including a teenage dragon, must put up with "a beastly fly-swimming spluttering aeroplane" that's been careering up and down Lake Windemere. More upsetting is the serious injury to Fred L. Baum, one of the plane's developers, who's found by Rascal, a popular Jack Russell terrier, at the bottom of Oat Cake Crag. The mystery element may be mild, but Albert does a fine job of recreating the wistful, nostalgic mood of Potter's children's books. (Sept.)
An Impartial Witness
Charles Todd, Morrow, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-179178-9 9780061791789
Set in the summer of 1917, Todd's excellent second mystery featuring British nurse Bess Crawford (after 2009's A Duty to the Dead) smoothly blends realistic characters with an intricate plot. When Bess accompanies Lt. Meriwether Evanson, a severe burn victim, from the Continent to England, she's surprised to spot the pilot's supposedly devoted wife, Marjorie, crying on another man's shoulder at a train station. After returning to saving lives under German fire in France, Bess is stunned to read in a newspaper that Marjorie has been stabbed to death in London. Soon after, the depressed lieutenant commits suicide by cutting his own throat. Unable to resist involving herself in the murder investigation, Bess seeks to identify Marjorie's unknown companion, the possible killer. In addition to supplying a challenging puzzle, Todd (a mother-son writing team) does a superb job of capturing the feel of the battlefield and the emotional toll taken on those waiting back home for a loved one's return. (Sept.)
Elvis and the Memphis Mambo Murders
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Peggy Webb, Kensington, $22 (304p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2593-1 9780758225931
In Webb's wacky third Southern Cousins mystery (after 2009's Elvis and the Grateful Dead), beautician Callie Valentine Jones swings into sleuth mode with her sidekick, cousin Lovie, after a participant in a dance contest, Babs Mabry Mims, takes a fatal fall over a concrete parapet at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. Next, Callie discovers another contestant, Gloria Divine, drowned in the hotel's fountain, and shortly afterward someone attacks Ruby Nell in her room. Callie worries that her mother's dance partner, Thomas Whitenton, who's acting mighty suspiciously, could be the killer. Complicating matters is the resurfacing of Jack Jones, Callie's estranged husband. While Jack's protective instincts are helpful, Callie hates how his mysterious job as an "international consultant" interferes with their marriage. Elvis, the detecting basset hound, continues to be the saving grace of this sometimes cute, sometimes corny cozy series. (Oct.)
Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel
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Martin Cruz Smith, Simon & Schuster, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7432-7674-0 9780743276740
Smith's seventh Arkady Renko novel (after Stalin's Ghost) falls short of his usual high standard. The Russian police detective, now a senior investigator, is seriously considering quitting the force because his boss, state prosecutor Zurin, refuses to assign him any cases. Renko seizes the chance to buck Zurin by finding the truth behind the death of a prostitute found in a workers' trailer parked in Moscow's seedy Three Stations (aka Komsomol Square). While the young woman, who Renko guesses is 18 or 19, apparently took a fatal drug overdose, he believes she was murdered. A subplot centering on a mother whose infant is stolen on a train detracts from rather than enhances the main investigation. This disappointing entry does only a superficial job of bringing the reader inside today's Russia. Hopefully, Smith and Renko will return to form next time. (Aug.)
