Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives by Adam Cesare

 Clown in a Cornfield 2: Frendo Lives by Adam Cesare-406 pages

In the sequel, we find Quinn Maybrook in Philadelphia beginning college and Cole Hill and Rust Vance still in Kettle Springs, Missouri trying to make things work. Quinn's father, Glenn, is now mayor of Kettle Springs and is trying to make it better and move past the massacre in the Tillerson's cornfield last year. However, Eli Duvall and his family, entertainment tycoons from Branson, Missouri, have opened a haunted park at the exact site of last year's massacre. Arthur Hill survived the aftermath of the massacre and is seeking revenge on Quinn, Cole, and Rust. There are new videos circulating the internet and social media saying that Quinn, Cole, and Rust were responsible for massacring the adults and had orchestrated the whole thing. One such video is called "The Baypen Hoax." It has echoes of current events, especially deep fakes and conspiracy theories not based in reality. Mayor Glenn Maybrook is attacked by someone in a Frendo the Clown costume and this leads to a new threat of massacre and unrest. Cole and Rust are visiting Quinn at college in Philadelphia and are attacked at the same time as Glenn by someone in a Frendo mask. Quinn learns of the attack on her father and she and Cole and Rust rush back to Kettle Springs. On Halloween, a mass of people wearing Frendo masks descend on Kettle Springs and bring unrest. They're seeking to arrest and bring to justice those they (mistakenly) believe perpetrated last year's attack, Quinn, Cole, and Rust. They want vigilante justice because they believe in the conspiracy theories and lies circulating the internet and social media. Will Quinn, Cole and Rust make it out alive again? What about Quinn's father, Glenn? Who else will make it out? I really liked this one and there were some interesting, surprising plot twists. I would recommend this to any horror fan, especially anyone who liked the first Clown in a Cornfield. 

Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson

Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson - 336 pages

The third book in the Longmire series takes the sheriff back East to Philadelphia to visit his daughter Cady.  Cady is injured and her boyfriend found dead which leads Longmire into the seamy underside of big city politics and into the worst fears that a father can have for his child's safety.  Deputy Vic's extended family in Philly assists Longmire in staying out of jail and finding out the truth about what happened to Cady.  I enjoyed seeing Longmire out of his element in the city but look forward to seeing Absaroka County Wyoming take center stage in the next book. 

Blood in the Water by Jane Haddam

Blood in the Water: A Gregor Demarkian Novel by Jane Haddam --- 282 pages

Gregor Demarkian is having a hard time coming to terms with the death of his old friend and neighbor, George Tekemanian. Even though George lived to be one hundred, Gregor can't understand why he died, for no apparent reason other than old age.

Even his current case cannot completely distract him from this grievance with the inexorable ways of the universe. On first look it seemed like such an easy and obvious case: two people murdered, a woman and her much younger lover; a fire set to cover up the crime, and the woman's husband found at the scene, with no good explanation for his presence. The police had promptly arrested the husband, Arthur Heydrich. Unfortunately, when the lab analysis of the remains of one corpse, burnt beyond recognition, comes back a week later it appears the body everyone assumed was Heydrich's missing wife, Martha, is actually the body of an unidentified man.

The overwelmed and undermanned local police call in Gregor, a former FBI agent now turned investigative consultant. The whole situation is exacerbated by the fact that the crime took place in Waldorf Pines, an exclusive gated community of newly and ostentatiously wealthy residents, a number of whom are concealing various unsavory details about their private lives; and by the fact that most of them don't particularly like each other and all of them loathed Martha Heydrich. Then there's the fact that the rest of Pineville Station, a small, rural community hanging on by its fingernails, bitterly resents Waldorf Pines and its domineering and entitled attitude.

Actually it doesn't take that long for Gregor to figure out what happened. The problem is sifting out the truth from the entanglement of lies to find the evidence that will prove the case in court.