Eat, Slay, Love by Julie Mae Cohen (pubished y Abrams)

 Eat, Slay, Lovem by Julie Mae Cohen  is as you might guess from the titlem a comic crime novel, featurng three women: a librarian who has just won the lottery, a fitness influencer and a chef who gave up her profession for motherhood. At first, the novel seems to be a story of the misery of abuse and fraud perpetrated by a husband fiance, and lover, but the story veers away from that story of misery and fraud into a farce featuring kidnapping and murder rather than bedrooms and assignations.

    There are sudden shifts in the narrative, surprises and coincidences, plus a heavy dose of revenge--leading to self-realization (hence the reference to the famous book on which Cohen's title is based). I enjoyed this book and recommend it for crime fans as well as readers seeking some dark comedy.

Murder in Pitigliano, by Camilla TrinchieriPro

 Prolific mystery writer Camilla Trinchieri has published four books in her Tuscan Mystery series. The fifth, Murder in Pittigliano, is due out this year. I haven't read the first four, but it's OK to start this series out of order, the author is very good at keeping a reader in the loop, regardless of their prior knowledge of the backstories of the characters. The series falls into the murder-in-a-small-town category, not exactly cozy but full of colorful characters, a cute dog, lots of food and wine, plus romance. 

An interesting comparison occurred to me while reading the book: some parallels woteh TanaFrench's most recent series, based i rural Ireland (particularly with the first book, The Hunter). In both Trinichieri's most recent book (at least) and in French's series there is an emigre American detective on his own (and then partnerec), there is a key young girl who enlists the services of the detective (the girl not quite so young in French's book), and frequent reference to preparing food (more basic in the Irish series, somewhat more Italianm though not totally traditional) in Trnchieri's. There ism of course death in both series, and there is also resisresisstancetence to the interloper detective in both.

But in Trinchieri's book, the American is integrated more smoothly into the community (though not totally welcomed) where as in French's there is always a distance. The dog adopted by the detective in Trinchieri's book helps to ingratiate him, whereas the most prominent animals in French's are a pack of raven's that mock the American despite his attempts to befriend them. And the biggest contrast is that in the Italian-set novel, there is ultimately a comfort in , for the interloper and for the reader, while in French's the American's comfort is much more limited (basically to two other characters), and the community as a whole never ceases to retain a threatening atmosphere. There are in the end cozy qualities to Trinchieri's very readable and enjoyable book, while French (as is typical in her work) goes to a darker place. I can happily recommend both, and would add that we are as readers fortunate to have both to choose from, and to inhabit each according to our taste and mood.

F.H. Batacan, Acidents Happen

Accidents Happen (from Soho Crime) is a story collection by the leading crime writer in the Philipines. Her fiction is darkest noir, dealing with social in a vivid and very noir manner. Accidents Happen brings together police procedurals, a ghost or horror story, a wistful apocalyptic dystopian nightmare, and other stories from other and blended genres. Batacan's Jesuit forensic scientist from her first novel, Smaller and Smaller Circles makes an appearance, leading an investigation into a mysterious death that ultimately leads to layers and layers of violence against women.  IN another story he oversees the investigation of family abuse that leads to horrifying mutilation. The stories are vivid, sometimes darkly comic and always imbued with a humanity that will keep readers involved even in the most difficult of the characters' dark situations.
 

Amy Jordan, The Dark Hours

 

The Dark Hours is the first novel Amy Jordan has published under that name: she previously pubished a crime trilogy in Ireland under the name Amy Cronin. The Dark Hours focuses on a 60-year-old former Garda detective in Ireland long retired from the force and living in seclusion in a rural town. Her reputation as a cop was based on her involvement in a serial kller cases, and after the death in prison of that killer, a murder that echoes his methods happens in Cork, and her former boss persuades her to come back to assist in the investigation (which she does unwillingly). 

     The novel alternates between that 0old case and the new one, with the resentments of more senior officers in the past and the resentment of currently serving detectives in the present case, as well as in both cases the race to catch the killer before more murders occur, and also in both cases, threats to the retired detective. The pace is quick and the stakes are hith, keeping the reader involved in a story that is interesting both for its unusual lead character and for the chase itself.

Sarah Foster, When She Was Gone

 Sara Foster, When She Was Gone

Sara Foster's When She Was Gone is a tense thriller about the abduction of a nanny and two young children in a remote vacation area near Perth,
Australia. We get a terrible hint of what is to come in the first pages, as well as a quick view of the nanny's estranged mother, a former BRitish detective and current activist against domestic violence. The parents of the abducted kids are rich and annoying, and the Aussie cop called back from a leave to take on the case is trying to temper his hyper-dedication to the job in order to save his marriage. kkkkThe complex scenario is handled ably by Foster, and the reader is swept along in the palpable tension of both the plot and the interpersonal relations. Highly recommended.

Two by John Banville in the Quirke series

 Has anaybody been reading the John Banville novels featuring Quirke, the Dublin pathologist in the postwar years (published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black)? Recently, Benville has started putting them out under his own name. Two recent ones, The Lockup and The Drowned are interrelated in an odd way. There is an enigmatic character who flows through both books: that is to say, he's enigmatic in both books unless you read them in order. At the very end of The Lockup, this character reveals himself completely and without compromise. The same is more or less true for The Drowned, but if you did read the end of the first book, you pretty much know that this character is capable of the crime in the second. I actually did read them in reverse order, and for me The Drowned was better without theh spoiler.

Both books feature Quirke's daughhter prominently, as well as her lover, a detective that Quirke despises. In both cases, the coroner is not so much a crime solver as a tangentially involved party to events, hovering around and occasionally offering evidence (for example, in The Lockup, indications that what had thought to be a suicide was in fact murder). Both books are evocative of Irish urban and rural locations, and Banville's style is literary without getting in the way of the story. The "hook" of the first book is the discovery of a young Jewish woman dead in her car, in a closed garage, her car having run until it was out of gas. The second is a less clear case, involving a group of people circling around the odd disappearance of a woman who drives her car into a field, leaving behind her husband as she disappears in the direction of the sea. Two possible suicides, possibly muurders, and both making interesting and involving novels.

Theh Museum Detective, byu Maha Khan Phillips (a crime novel and a mummy-thriller)

 I hadn't seen much new, lately,  that was compelling and innovative, int eh crime fiction field:

but I recently finished The Museum Detective, by Maha Khan Phillips--which is a Pakistan-set archaeology thriller, not quite Indiana Jones but with mummies, counterfeit mummies, murder, corruption, a feminist perspective---apparently the first in a series.

 Based on a true story (though the plot of the novel is entirely fictional), Phillips creates an accomplished archaeologist and feminist who stumbles across the discovery (by police rather than archaeologists) a mummy that will be a scandal either for all those involved in the discovery or for the field of archaeology. That is to say either this mummy is either a gruesome fake or a discovery that will create a seismic shift in ancient history as we know it.

Add to that a personal tragedy that might be connected to the discovery, the corru[t and criminal conspiracies revolving around the mummy, and the determination of the heroine to get to the bottom of the affair regardless of consequences for her, her familyu, and her colleagues--and the result is truly a distinctive p[age-turner in a genre all its own.