Wednesday, April 25, 2018

May 2018 New Mystery Releases!

When this is posted, Denis and I will be having fun with our niece, Daisy, who's here from England for two weeks. As you can see, I'm trying to get as much as possible done ahead of time, but who knows how successful I'll be? One thing is certain, though: I'm always on the lookout for new reading material, regardless of what's going on around me!

These are my picks of new crime fiction being released during the month of May. I've grouped them by release date, and the book covers and synopses are courtesy of Amazon.

Hopefully, I've chosen a title or two that tickles your fancy as well as mine. Let's take a look!

=== May 1 ===

Title: A Baby's Bones
Suspense set in present-day England involving a 400-year-old mystery.
464 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.


Title: See Also Proof
Series: #3 in the Marjorie Trumaine historical series set in 1960s North Dakota.
251 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

Synopsis: "Dickinson, North Dakota, 1965. It's a harsh winter, and freelance indexer Marjorie Trumaine struggles to complete a lengthy index while mourning the recent loss of her husband, Hank. The bleakness of the weather seems to compound her grief, and then she gets more bad news: a neighbor's fourteen-year-old disabled daughter, Tina Rinkerman, has disappeared. Marjorie joins Sheriff Guy Reinhardt in the search for the missing girl, and their investigation quickly leads to the shocking discovery of a murdered man near the Rinkermans' house. What had he been doing there? Who would have wanted him dead? And, above all, is his murder connected to Tina's disappearance?

Their pursuit of answers will take Marjorie all the way to the Grafton State School, some six hours away, where Tina lived until recently. And the information she uncovers there raises still more questions. Will the murderer come after Marjorie now that she knows a long-hidden secret?

Title: The Perfect Mother
Author: Aimee Molloy
Psychological Thriller, Standalone, set in Brooklyn.
336 pages



=== May 2 ===

Title: The Otter of Death
Author: Betty Webb
Series: #5 in the Gunn Zoo series set on the central coast of California.
235 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.




Title: The Bomb Shelter
Author: Jon Talton
Series: #9 in the David Mapstone police procedural set in present-day Phoenix, Arizona.
300 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

Synopsis: "Forty years ago, a Phoenix reporter was killed by a car bomb in one of America's most notorious crimes. Three men went to prison - but was there more to the story of Charles Page's assassination? More than three low-level players? Did a kingpin order the hit and get away with it? And what was the real motive? Despite the work of teams of journalists and law and legal professionals, no one yet knows why.

It's a case custom-made for David Mapstone, the historian-turned-sheriff's deputy. And suddenly Mapstone's boss, newly re-elected Sheriff Mike Peralta, promises to reopen the investigation into the only murder of an American journalist, in the US, in modern times. Why?

The promise triggers new murders. The crimes are reenactments of Phoenix's mob-riddled past, where gangsters rubbed elbows with the city's elite amid crosscurrents of corrupt cops, political payoffs, gambling, prostitution, and murder, all shielded by the sunshine image of a resort city. But who is committing them? A former soldier who is an explosives expert and deadly with a knife? A woman with screen-siren looks and extraordinary computer skills? Or someone out of Phoenix's seamy, swinging Seventies with secrets to keep, even though the major power brokers are dead?

Mapstone will need all the help he can get. He enlists a Ph.D. candidate and Black Lives Matter activist to help him comb through sealed archives of the original bombing. Mapstone's wife, Lindsey, a top hacker, rejoins the Sheriff's Office and plays a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the perp or perps - one that goes from the digital to the real and risky world. Somewhere in the house of mirrors surrounding the Page case they must find the key that connects the past to the present.

=== May 15 ===

Title: Fall of Angels
Author: Barbara Cleverly
Series: #1 in the John Redfyre historical series set in 1920s Cambridge, England.
384 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.



Redfyre finds himself anxious throughout a performance in which Juno charms and captivates her audience, and his unease proves well-founded when she tumbles headlong down a staircase after curtain fall. He finds evidence that someone carefully planned her death. Has her showing provoked a dangerous, vengeful woman-hater to take action?


Title: A Howl of Wolves
Series: #4 in the Samantha Clair amateur sleuth series set in present-day London, England.
304 pages

Synopsis: "Sam Clair figures she’ll be a good sport and spend a night out at the theater in support of her upstairs neighbors, who have small parts in a play in the West End. Boyfriend (a Scotland Yard detective) and all-round good sport Jake Field agrees to tag along to what is apparently an extra-bloody play filled with dramatic, gory deaths galore. So Sam expects an evening filled with faux fatalities. Until, that is, the curtain opens to the second act, revealing a dummy hanging from the rafters, who’s been made up to look suspiciously like Campbell Davison, the director of the production.

When Sam sees the horrified faces of the actors onstage, she realizes that this is indeed not a dummy, but Davison himself―and this death is not part of the show. Now everyone wants to know: who killed Campbell Davison? As Sam learns more about the murdered man, she discovers that he wasn’t all that well-liked amongst the cast and crew, so the suspect list grows. The show must go on―but Sam knows a murderer must be apprehended, so she sets out to find out what happened, and why."

Title: The Dark Angel
Series: #10 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series set in Italy.
352 pages

Synopsis: "It’s not every day that you’re summoned to the Italian countryside on business, so when archaeologist Angelo Morelli asks for Ruth Galloway’s help identifying bones found in the tiny hilltop town of Fontana Liri, she jumps at the chance to go, bringing her daughter along with her for a working vacation. Upon arriving, she begins to hear murmurs of Fontana Liri’s strong resistance movement during World War II and senses the townspeople are dancing around a deeply buried secret. But how could that be connected to the ancient remains she’s been studying?

Ruth is just beginning to get her footing in the dig when she’s thrown off-guard by the appearance of DCI Nelson. And when Ruth’s findings lead them to a modern-day murder, their holidays are both turned upside down, and they race to find out what darkness is lurking in this seemingly picturesque town.

Title: A Million Drops
Author: Victor del Árbol
Literary Thriller, Standalone set in Spain.
640 pages

Synopsis: "Gonzalo Gil is a lawyer stuck in a disaffected life, in a failed career, trying to dodge the constant manipulation of his powerful father-in-law. This monotonous existence is shaken up when he learns, after years without news of his estranged sister, Laura, that she has committed suicide under dramatic circumstances. Her death pushes the fragile balance of Gonzalo's life as both a father and husband to the limit.

Resolutely investigating the steps that led his sister to suicide, he will discover that Laura is suspected of having murdered a Russian gangster who had kidnapped and killed her young son. But what seems to be revenge is just the beginning of a tortuous path that will take Gonzalo through the untold annals of his family's past that he would rather not face. He will have to enter fully into the fascinating story of his father, Elias Gil--the great hero of the resistance against fascism, the young Spanish engineer who traveled to the USSR committed to the ideals of the revolution, who was betrayed, arrested, and confined on the infamous Nazino Island, and who became a key figure, admired and feared, of Spain's darkest years.

Title: How It Happened
Series: #1 in the Rob Barrett thriller series set in Maine.
368 pages

Synopsis: "Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and heroin addict whose petty crimes are well-known to the rural Maine community where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.

Not Rob Barrett, the FBI investigator and interrogator specializing in telling a true confession from a falsehood. He's been circling Kimberly and her conspirators for months, waiting for the right avenue to the truth, and has finally found it. He knows, as strongly as he's known anything, that Kimberly's story-a grisly, harrowing story of a hit and run fueled by dope and cheap beer that becomes a brutal stabbing in cold blood is how it happened. But one thing remains elusive: where are Jackie and Ian's bodies?


=== May 22 ===

Title: The Outsider
Author: Stephen King
Standalone set in the present day.
576 pages




=== May 29 ===

Title: Dead Girls
Standalone Thriller set in England.
304 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

Synopsis: "It’s been two months since a serial killer brutally attacked police detective Alisha Green and left her for dead. Two months since she could effortlessly recall simple things since her mind felt remotely sound. The nameless killer thinks he knows her, thinks she’s just another dead girl among many. Ali Green plans to show him he’s dead wrong about that.


Title: Crime & Punctuation
Series: #1 in the Deadly Edits cozy series set in the Catskills area of New York state.
304 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.




Well... did I manage to tempt you with any of my picks? Which ones? 

I love the cover for Betty Webb's The Otter of Death, and Kaitlyn Dunnett's Crime & Punctuation intrigues me. I'm not entirely sure that I like it. What do you think? As for the worst cover of the month, my hat is off to The Perfect Mother. What were they thinking?


  1. Looks like a nice crop of new books coming up, Cathy! A new 'See Also' novel, and a new Elly Griffiths - yay! Not that my budget or TBR are happy about it...

    1. Oh piddle! You're not going to let things like that stop you, are you? LOL

  2. Elly Griffiths' book is on library hold. And I'll also look for the new Marjorie Tremaine, now a favorite character. A few others look good, but I'm trying to avoid terror, brutality, missing children, right now. May move on later.

    American by Day by Derek B. Miller is my favorite right now, and am awaiting more about these characters. (cross my fingers)

    1. He doesn't write very quickly, so you may have a long wait. (But it's not as though you have nothing else to read....)

  3. If you found the Cleverly to be half-decent, I'm in! I love her Joe Sandlilands series.

    1. I have to admit that I haven't read it yet. For some reason the Sandilands series didn't grab me, so I'm hoping that this one does.

