The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear

The American Agent: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear --- 365 pages including Acknowledgements and About the Author.

The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear is the 15th book in the Maisie Dobbs series. In the early weeks of the Second World War, Maisie must investigate a politically sensitive murder while volunteering as an ambulance driver during the London Blitz along with her good friend Priscilla Partridge. At the same time she is anxiously waiting the hearing that will determine whether she is allowed to adopt the orphaned Anna, a traumatized young evacuee who has lost all of her own family. As part of the murder investigation, Maisie must work with an agent of the Department of Justice on special assignment undercover  at the American Embassy in London, Mark Scott. Maisie has met Scott before, when she rescued a British national from Nazi Germany. Maisie is ambivalent about Scott and unsure whether he feels anything in return or is just using her to get his job done.  Another fine historical mystery from Winspear.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

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

Hunting Game by Helene Tursten

Hunting Game: A Novel by Helene Tursten, translated from the Swedish by Paul Norlen --- 280 pages including Acknowledgements.

The first book in a new crime series by celebrated Swedish mystery writer Helene Tursten. Embla Nyström has overcome a troubled childhood and adolescence and has established a promising career for herself  as a detective police inspector in a special investigative mobile unit in Gothenburg, Sweden. She's a health fanatic and competitive welterweight boxer, and she loves the outdoors life.

As the story begins, Embla is taking a much-needed holiday from her high-stress job to participate in a moose hunt with family and old friends in a beautiful but isolated rural retreat. It's something that Embla looks forward to every year, a chance to reconnect with her roots. But this year the equilibrium of the long-established hunting group is disturbed by the addition of a new member, a very attractive  but mysterious young man named Peter Hansson, who has just inherited a farm in the area.

Embla finds herself strongly attracted to Peter one moment and put off by his abrupt moods the next. The longtime leader of the hunting group, Sixten Svensson, seems to have taken an immediate and visceral dislike to Peter, but Embla knows that Sixten had long harbored hopes of buying the land Peter inherited to add to his own holdings.

When the hunt begins, at first it seems like everyone has settled down and Embla begins to relax and enjoy herself. However, the good mood doesn't last long.  A series of unsettling incidents leaves Embla wondering if someone has a grudge against the members of the hunting party. But when two of the hunters abruptly disappear overnight, the situation turns into something far worse. Embla takes charge of the search, and it doesn't take long to discover the body of one of the missing men, floating in the icy waters of a nearby lake. The other missing man seems to have vanished into thin air.  Soon the rest of Embla's investigative team arrives to assist in the search, and slowly a series of enigmatic clues are discovered that suggest someone is exacting vengeance for a dark deed buried in the past. Can Embla put the pieces together and discover the truth?

A classic whodunit with a thoroughly modern female detective who has her own ghosts to face down as she pursues her investigation.  Tursten is also the author of the popular Irene Huss mystery series, which was turned into an equally popular television serial in her native Sweden. 

Click HERE to read the review from the Crime by the Book Blog.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Journal of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from Booklist Online. 

Deep Freeze by John Sandford

Deep Freeze: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 391 pages

The tenth novel in Sandford's popular spin-off series featuring Virgil Flowers, an investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Virgil returns to the small town of Trippton, Minnesota where, a few years back, he was sent to investigate a dog-napping ring and not only saved the dogs but uncovered a corrupt and homicidal school board (Deadline - 2014).

Now he's back because Gina Hemming, who inherited control of the town bank from her father, disappeared after hosting a meeting of her high school 25th class reunion committee, and her body turned up a few days later frozen and floating in the icy Mississippi River. But it wasn't the cold that killed her; a blunt instrument whacked against her head was the cause of death.

What makes the book a great read however is not Hemmings' murder --- since the murderer is identified early on, although Virgil only determines the guilty party after eliminating all the other suspects.  What makes the book interesting is the way Sandford, with absolute deadpan humor, incorporates a subplot in which the governor, as a political favor, orders him to help a private investigator from California who is trying to serve a cease and desist order for trademark infringement on a group of local women who are selling Barbie-Oh and Boner-Ken (modified) dolls over the Internet in order to pay their bills and hold on to their homes. Virgil discovers trying to track down the women is far more dangerous than solving the murder --- and not just because he sympathizes with the women.

Sandford writes thrillers like no one else. Smart and funny. If you haven't given him a try I recommend you go back and read the books in order from the start (Dark of the Moon-2007)

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.