Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

Career of Evil: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith --- 492 pages

The third novel in the Cormoran Strike series of crime novels by J.K. Rowling writing under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, is equally suspenseful as its predecessors, The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm.

This time out, Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott, are in pursuit of a sociopath serial killer who is stalking Robin because of a long festering grudge against Strike. The trouble is, Strike can think of at least four men from his past who could be twisted, sick, violent and vengeful enough to qualify as suspects.

Adding to the tension in the office is Robin's ambivalent attitude about her relationship with her fiance, the insufferable Matthew, and the wedding lurking on the horizon. In the course of the investigation we learn more about both Robin and Strike's backstories, which helps explain a lot about their difficult partnership.

A real page turner, almost impossible to put down, and once finished, you'll want to go back and pick out the clues you missed the first time through.

Click HERE for the Chicago Tribune review.

Click HERE for the National Public Radio review.

Click HERE for the New York Times review.

Click HERE for the Boston Globe review.

The Kindred of Darkness by Barbara Hambly

The Kindred of Darkness: A James Asher Vampire Novel by Barbara Hambly --- 248 pages

This is just the fifth book in Hambly's vampire series; she started about twenty years ago with Those Who Hunt the Night. After the first two books there was a long hiatus before she picked up the series again.

For those who like their vampires in the classic tradition (as opposed to those contemporary teen angst vamps) Hambly writes the kind of horror that sends shivers down your spine and keeps you awake in the dark.

Oxford don James Asher is a philologist and folklorist with an extensive knowledge (painfully acquired) of the legend and lore of the Undead. His wife Lydia forsook her gilded cage as the daughter of a wealthy Victorian family to study medicine. The two of them have narrowly survived dangerous encounters with vampires in London, Europe, Russia and China, but after the birth of their daughter Miranda, they promised each other such adventures were behind them.

Until the night the Master Vampire of London kidnaps Miranda and her nursemaid to force Lydia and James into helping him discover the lair of a renegade vampire who is challenging the Master for control of the London Nest.

With the lives of their daughter and the innocent maid at stake, Lydia searches frantically for evidence that will reveal the intruder vampire's hiding places. At the same time she must act her part in her young cousin's formal debut into London high society, so that no one suspects she and James are trying to discover what lies behind this rivalry for control of the London vampires --- and locate where Miranda and the maid are being held captive.

James learns that an ancient book, The Kindred of the Dead, said to describe methods for destroying vampires, is at the heart of the struggle between the Master and his rival. Meanwhile Lydia, in desperation, has summoned the assistance of Don Simon Ysidro, the vampire who first drew the Ashers into the fell world of the Undead --- where nothing and no one is who or what it appears to be and above all, where no human in his right mind should trust the word of a vampire.

Hambly writes a great story, and the James Asher novels (as well as all her other novels, encompassing historical fiction, mysteries and fantasy) are highly recommended.

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train: A Novel by William Kuhn --- 374 pages

Her Majesty, suffering from depression and self-doubt, follows a spur of the moment impulse and slips out of Buckingham Palace, disguised in a hoodie, to go off to Scotland by herself on the train. Ostensibly she wants to comfort herself with a sentimental visit to the decommissioned royal yacht Britannia, now reduced to a tourist attraction on the quay at Leith.

An elderly lady in waiting, a royal equerry, her butler, her dresser, a girl from the Royal Mews, and a young man working in a cheese shop that supplies the Palace, all join forces in a quixotic effort to find the Queen and get her home again before the tabloids get wind of her little adventure, or the dreaded and humorless MI5 sends a squad to track her down. Somewhere between Monty Python and Alexander McCall Smith, charming, no nonsense, and good-humored. The author, a biographer and historian with an interest in British history, lives in Boston. This is his first novel.