The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

The Legacy: A Thriller by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 455 pages

Yrsa Sigurdardóttir is the current queen of Icelandic crime fiction, with a number of books to her credit.  The Legacy is the first book in a projected new "Children's House" series that will explore the unlikely partnership of Freyja, a psychologist who works with severely traumatized children, and newly promoted homicide detective Huldar.

Freyja and Huldar must (reluctantly) work together on a particularly horrific series of murders because the only witness they have is a seven-year-old girl who was hiding under the bed in the room when her mother was killed.  Freyja dislikes the police in general and Huldar in particular, but has to cooperate in order to protect little Magrét from the intense pressure of the investigation.

Meanwhile, Karl, a lonely young man living in his deceased mother's house, is getting strange numerically-coded messages on short wave radio that seem to be aimed specifically at him. It takes a long time for Karl to figure out the key to the numbers and decode them, but the cryptic messages that result only frighten and confuse him further.

The only thing that is certain is that the killer, whoever he is, holds a violent grudge against his victims, yet they seem to be chosen at random. If he can only discover what connects the victims, Huldar is certain he could identify the killer. But will he make the connection before the killer strikes again?

Nordic Noir to rival the darkest and most tangled tales of the Icelandic sagas.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publisher's Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the Criminal Element blog.

Click HERE to read the review from theartsdesk.com.

Dexter Is Dead by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Is Dead: A Novel by Jeff Lindsay --- 286 pages

In the eighth and final book in the popular series, Dexter Morgan, mild-mannered forensics technician by day and sociopathic serial killer by night, finally gets his comeuppance when he's arrested for murder --- framed, ironically, for a murder he didn’t commit --- in the process losing his wife, his kids and his sister Debs' loyalty. The one thing his adoptive father Harry had drilled into him --- the unbreakable bond of family --- is shattered.

Then Dexter discovers there is one familial bond that is still holding. His birth brother, Brian, shows up with enough cash to pay for Miami's highest powered criminal attorney to take Dexter's case. Unfortunately, Brian is himself a homicidal maniac, even more damaged by their shared childhood trauma than Dexter.  And the money he is lavishing on Dexter's defense happens to be money he stole from a Mexican drug lord who will stop at nothing to get his revenge.

A satisfying finale to a blackly humorous series --- and much better than the television series loosely based on the books in my opinion. 

Click HERE to read the official prepublication announcement.

Click HERE to read the Kirkus review of Dexter Is Dead and HERE to watch the Kirkus interview with author Jeff Lindsay.

Gathering Prey by John Sandford

Gathering Prey: A Novel by John Sandford --- 407 pages

This is the 25th book in the Lucas Davenport thriller series by John Sandford, and I would say it is one of his best ever.  There have been indications from the author that he is wanting to "wrap up" the Prey series, and this is that wrap up but also --- good news for Davenport fans --- hints of a new direction to come.

Davenport's adopted daughter Letty, now attending Stanford University in California, is the catalyst for his involvement in this case.  Letty befriends a young woman and her boyfriend who she meets in San Francisco. Skye and Henry are Travellers, people who choose an itinerent lifestyle, supporting themselves by panhandling, odd jobs, occasionally by petty theft; an essentially invisible group of perpetual wanderers existing on the fringes and living by their wits. On impulse she gives them her phone number and tells them to call her if they ever get to Minnesota.

Skye considers herself to be street-smart, but even she is not wary enough to avoid becoming the target of a gang of thrill seekers under the spell of a Charles Manson-like killer who calls himself Pilate. When Henry disappears in South Dakota, Skye panics and calls Letty for help. Letty arranges for Skye to get to Minneapolis, and persuades her father to listen to Skye's story.  Lucas believes Skye and gets involved. From there the story becomes a blood-soaked juggernaut careening across three states to the final showdown. I started this book at 6 o'clock in the evening and finished it at 1 a.m. after a fast, furious and viscerally satisfying read.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read a review from the Huffington Post,

Click HERE (SPOILER ALERT) to read a review and Sandford talking about Davenport's future.

Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell

Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell --- 339 pages

The suspenseful sequel to Murder as a Fine Art finds Thomas De Quincy and his daughter Emily reluctantly about to depart London where they have been the guests of the unwilling Lord Palmerston while Emily nursed detectives Ryan and Becker back to health from the injuries they sustained in the previous adventure.

At the moment of departure however, word reaches De Quincey of a new and shocking murder, in which a lady dies in the middle of a Sunday church service. Greatly relieved, De Quincy hastens to lend his "expertise" once again.

This is another gripping historical thriller, featuring a number of actual, prominent persons in Victorian England. The story takes place during the eight-week period early in 1855 when Britain was effectively without a government.  As a result of the sensational revelations about the gross mismanagement of the Crimean War reported in dispatches from the front lines by the pioneering journalist William Russell, the government collapsed until Queen Victoria reluctantly asked Lord Palmerston, the Home Secretary, to become Prime Minister.

A series of grisly and sensational murders terrorizes London. Important and influential men and their families are being violently attacked. Is this some political conspiracy at work, enemies of the state seeking to overthrow the social order  --- or are these the acts of a deranged mind?  Can the infamous Opium Eater, Thomas De Quincey, with his strange theories about the mind and memory, and his knowledge of speculative philosophy, deduce the motives and identify the mind behind these grotesque crimes before the murderer can strike at the ultimate targets he holds culpable for the injustice that casually destroyed an innocent family?

Mixing historical fact and murderous fancy, Morrell has produced another outstanding Victorian thriller.

Click HERE to read a review from the My Bookish Ways blog.

Click HERE to read a review from the Winston-Salem Journal.

Click HERE to read an interview with author David Morrell from the Huffington Post.

Field of Prey by John Sandford

Field of Prey: A Novel by John Sandford --- 392 pages

Field of Prey is Sandford's twenty-fourth novel in the Lucas Davenport series of crime novels. I got a definite sense while I was reading this book that Sandford is getting ready to wind down the Lucas Davenport series, and I was interested to find a recent interview in the Huffington Post (click HERE) that seems to confirm my hunch.

It's been a great series, compulsively readable, but Sandford seems ready to move on to new interests. I just hope he continues to write.

In Field of Prey Davenport and his team in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are facing one of their biggest challenges when two randy teenagers stumble on evidence indicating that a serial killer has been murdering women for over twenty years and dumping their bodies in an old cistern on an abandoned farm. The Bureau is working with local law enforcement in the rural county where the bodies were found to try to figure out how so many women could have disappeared without anybody noticing.

The killer has been clever; he's left almost no evidence that could be used to identify him other than the assumption that he must have a local connection since only someone familiar with the area could have known about the cistern. But that's not much to go on. The news media is going wild with the story, and the Governor (who has national political ambitions) needs this case solved fast. But Lucas knows this is not the kind of case that is going to be solved fast. And his biggest concern is making sure the killer doesn't add any new victims to his tally before they catch up with him,

Meanwhile the killer is enjoying watching the media feeding frenzy, and looking for his next trophy, when he notices a tall, rangy blonde, Catrin Mattsson, the investigating officer from the County Sheriff's Department, being interviewed on TV.

I read the book in one sitting and wound up staying up until 1 a.m. to finish it. Sandford is one of those authors who just sucks you in and you can't stop until you finish it. Warning: this book is not for the squeamish.

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell --- 358 pages

David Morrell got his start with the series of novels he wrote about a traumatized Vietnam war veteran which became the basis of the Rambo films starring Sylvester Stallone.

But he's gone on to write a number of tauntly plotted suspense thrillers incorporating historical people and events, of which this is the latest and one of the best.  Although his prose may be clunky, his characterizations of both real and imagined characters are compelling, and he deftly weaves any number of real events, persons and places into his tale.

It is 1854 and London, the capital of the British Empire, is the home of  the richest and most powerful men in the world. Much of the Empire's power however comes from the British East India Company's opium trade, which has destroyed the lives of millions of people at home and abroad. Thomas de Quincey, the infamous author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, has been lured to London so he can be framed for a series of brutal murders identical to the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders that terrorized London in 1811.

De Quincey is suspected because one of his most controversial essays, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," discusses the Ratcliffe Highway murders in great detail --- the very same horrific details that have been meticulously recreated in the new attacks. In order to prove his own innocence, de Quincey must insinuate himself into the police investigation, all the while fighting the debilitating effects of his own opium addiction. He learns that he and the murderer are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

Check out this TRAILER for Murder as a Fine Art.

Dexter's Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter's Final Cut: A Novel by Jeff Lindsay --- 352 pages

As fans of Miami PD's Dexter Morgan are well aware, this fall will be the final season of the hit Showtime Network series based on Jeff Lindsay's novels.

Coincidentally, Lindsay's seventh Dexter novel has just been released, and it also hints that Dexter's seemingly charmed life is taking a very different direction.

Dexter and his sister Deborah are informed that they have been assigned as special advisors to a TV network filming the pilot for a new police series set in Miami. Dexter is surprised to discover that there are people who make a good living faking human emotions for the camera --- something that he has learned to do to disguise his inner Monster. Could fame and fortune smile on Dexter? But things turn serious when a brutally murdered woman is found in a Dumpster, and Dexter and Deborah figure out that there's a serial killer lurking in the shadows with a murderous fixation on Jackie Forrest, the star of the show. As events spiral out of control, Dexter's carefully ordered life starts to crack --- to the point where it may not be possible for him to put things back together anymore.

Light of the World by James Lee Burke

Light of the World: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke --- 548 pages

This in the nineteenth novel in Burke's series about Louisiana Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux. In one sense these books can be characterized as suspense or crime thrillers, but Burke's work is far more complex than the usual genre thriller, digging into the circumstances that complicate determinations of guilt and innocence and cautioning against any rush to judgement.

The usual setting has also shifted, as Burke sets this story amid the towering beauty of Montana's Big Sky country, contrasting the starkly defined and beautiful physical environment with the dark, murky and self-destructive lives of the characters --- as "though every prospect pleases and only man is vile," in the words of Reginald Heber's well-known hymn.

Burke's wonderfully evocative descriptive passages are one of the great pleasures of reading his fiction, at a time when most authors are exhorted to cut it out and get on with the action. There is also plenty of action, as Dave and his friend Clete become convinced that a serial killer is orchestrating a series of attacks on their families and friends, and that all this is tied to the wheeling and dealing of Love Younger, a ruthless oil tycoon, and the unsolved murder of his adopted granddaughter, Angel Deer Heart. Clete complicates matters by falling hard for the murdered girl's mother, and Clete's long-lost-now-found daughter Gretchen (who comes with her own set of problems) complicates them further by her intent to film a documentary exposing the environmental damage done by the oil tycoon's company. As always, Dave and Clete find themselves struggling with their own ghosts and demons as they try to separate truth from lies and stop the killer once and for all.

This one may be long, but it reads fast and is hard to put down.    

The Crypt Thief by Mark Pryor

The Crypt Thief: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 253 pages

Hugo Marston, a former FBI profiler, now the head of security for the American Embassy in Paris, and his old friend Tom, a hard living more-or-less ex-CIA agent still on retainer, are called into action to assist the French police when the son of a U.S. Senator and his girl friend are found murdered near Jim Morrison's grave in the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Even when the walled cemetery is put under intense surveillance, the unknown killer manages to return unseen, break into the crypt of a legendary Moulin Rouge dancer, and disappear again along with half of her skeleton. When it turns out that the murdered girl friend entered France on a faked passport in the company of a reputed Pakistani terrorist, the investigating forces begin looking at the crime as a possible terrorist plot --- but Hugo doesn't think so. Then the killer breaks into another cemetery and steals the bones of another famous Moulin Rouge dancer --- again, right under the noses of the police. How is the killer getting past the police? And why is he fixated on the bones of dead can-can dancers?

With timely assistance from a French police capitaine and Claudia, a reporter with whom he has an on-again, off-again relationship, Hugo finally begins to figure out what motivates these bizarre crimes. But can he manage to get one step ahead of this clever killer and stop his deadly obsession?

Sequel to The Bookseller. The author is a former British reporter, now an assistant district attorney for Travis County TX. Pryor is the creator of the true-crime blog, D.A. Confidential. http://www.daconfidential.com He lives in Austin.

Let the Devil Sleep by John Verdon

Let the Devil Sleep
By John Verdon
Pgs. 448

Third book in a series about Detective Dave Gurney.

Retired detective Dave Gurney gets caught up in the unsolved cold case of a serial murder.  He is a humble individual with a sharp mind for closing cases.   A variety of  characters leads the story in many directions with just as many suspects, keeping the identity of the killer up for grabs. 

Very good book, but I recommend reading the first two in the series before reading this one.

The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis

The Malice of Fortune: A Novel by Michael Ennis --- 396 pages

A historical novel about the infamous Borgias, and speculation as to the real story behind the officially unsolved murder of Pope Alexander VI's favorite son, the feckless Juan, Duke of Gandia. All of the principal characters and events are real; Niccolo Machiavelli narrates and serves as sleuth. Leonardo da Vinci is his forensic expert and Engineer General for one of the chief suspects: Duke Valentino, known to us as Cesare Borgia, Alexander's less-favored son, who rose high and fell spectacularly.

The author, a historian, has been meticulous in his research. Early 16th century Renaissance Italy is brought most convincingly to life in all it's squalor, murderous intrigue, and fleeting glory.