Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley

Down the River Unto the Sea: A Novel by Walter Mosley --- 322 pages.

The prolific Walter Mosley's latest book introduces a new hero, ex-cop-turned-private investigator, Joe King Oliver. Oliver is a man haunted by injustices, who suffered personal betrayal by dirty cops and a vindictive ex-wife, but is honest enough to admit that his own bad choices also played a part in his downfall. Set up by a phony rape charge, Oliver was locked up in the notorious Rikers Island jail, where only solitary confinement saved him from being killed by other inmates. By the time he was released, as suddenly and as inexplicably as he had been arrested, Oliver was so traumatized by the brutality he experienced that he has cut himself off from all but the most minimal human contact for almost thirteen years. His 17-year-old daughter, Aja-Denise, who refuses to give up on her dad, is his only connection with humanity, and all that has kept him sane.

Oliver's time-out is ending however. The woman who helped set him up on the rape charge has been born again and writes him a letter that helps him piece together why he was taken down. And another young black man is on death row, being framed for murder because he killed two dirty cops in self-defense when they tried to murder him. Oliver sees connections between the two and is convinced that he can vindicate himself he he can prove the truth in the other case. But he can't do it alone. So he turns to another lost soul, Melquarth Frost. Frost is even more damaged by the violence and brutality of a racist environment than Oliver.  Redemption is beyond his reach, but he can see a thin chance of it for Oliver, and decides to help. In one powerful scene, Frost confesses to Oliver that his own mother hated him. It made him long to evolve into something different; "like wolves had become dogs or dinosaurs birds.” Instead, the only amends he could offer was to seek out and kill the man who had raped his mother and produced him.

Mosley's take on human existence is as powerful in its own way as Dante's or Milton's.

Click HERE to read a review from the Los Angeles Times.

Click HERE to read a review from WSB-TV (Atlanta).

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

A Great Reckoning by Louis Penny

A Great Reckoning: A Novel by Louise Penny --- 389 pages

Another beautiful book in Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series (number 12 to be precise), set in Quebec.  It's almost impossible to categorize Penny's work: these are crime novels in one sense, but only in the same sense that Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is a crime story.

They are explorations of what it means to be human, the mismatch between what happens and what we think is happening, and the small but sometimes fatal difference that can make.  In a recent interview Penny says her books are not about murder but about poetry, and that she works through six or seven drafts to pare down her story and her words until only the most essential remain. One reviewer suggests that the essence of this book is what the old owe to the young in their care.  Those who have followed the Chief Inspector through his career will know that he has labored long to root out corruption in the Sûreté du Québec. Now he has left retirement to become the Commander of the Sûreté Academy, the college where new recruits receive their training --- and he suspects --- the tainted source from which the corruption flows.  And the first lesson Gamache attempts to teach these cadets is "Don't believe everything you think." 

If you've never read Louise Penny, start at the beginning with Still Life, and enjoy a literary feast!

Click HERE to watch an interview with Louise Penny at the Book Expo America 2016.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Times.

Treachery at Lancaster Gate by Anne Perry

Treachery at Lancaster Gate: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel by Anne Perry --- 288 pages

Anne Perry is the best-selling author of two Victorian mystery series: one featuring Inspector William Monk and his wife Hester; and the other featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte.

This is the 31st book in the Pitt series, and it is both absorbing and almost chillingly timely, as the story opens with Pitt, now head of Special Branch, standing in the shambles of a bomb explosion in a quiet London neighborhood, with two police officers dead and three more seriously injured --- and anarchists, the real life terrorists of the turn of the last century, are immediately suspected. Perry's book, published last fall, cannot fail to touch a nerve with readers after recent events in Paris and Brussels.

And this is typical of Perry, who has a way of creating stories set within historical events of the last century to cast a light on contemporary concerns such as drug addiction, or the yawning gulf between the wealthy and well-connected and the working class poor. Pitt is shaken when he uncovers evidence that this crime was not the work of anarchists but a desperate attempt to expose corruption within the police that sent an innocent man to the gallows.  As a former police officer himself, Pitt doesn't want to believe it; but when pressure is brought to bear to persuade him to give up his inquiries, it only stiffens his resolve to find the truth. Perry knows how to ratchet up the tension as Pitt and his trusted associates must risk their own lives to prove their case. Many of her books feature riveting courtroom battles, and Treachery at Lancaster Gate ends with a whopper. This is one more Perry book that, once started, I could not put down until the last sentence.

Click HERE for a review from the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Click HERE for a review from the Book Reporter.

The Son by Jo Nesbo

The Son by Jo Nesbo; translated from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund --- 402 pages

Jo Nesbo is a musician, songwriter and economist as well as an award-winning Norwegian writer of gripping psychological crime novels.

He describes his new book, The Son, as a biblically-themed story of love, betrayal, vengeance and redemption.  I read it in one day; once I started, I was unable to put the book down until I finished it. Kudoes not just to the author but to the translator!


Cllick HERE to read a review of The Son.

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 405 pages

It's not often that a murder mystery and tale of political corruption leaves you with tears of joy at the ending, but Louis Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series is no ordinary mystery series.

This is the eighth book in a series that just keeps getting better. Christmas is approaching but for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, the joy of the season is overshadowed by the deadly power struggle going on inside the Sûreté, which he begins to suspect is linked to rampant, longstanding political corruption in the province. When he receives a call for help from an old friend in the small, isolated village of Three Pines, about a guest who has failed to arrive for a holiday visit, he welcomes the chance to escape from the city. But this case is also much more complicated than it appears, for the missing woman was once world famous, although now almost a recluse and mostly forgotten by the public. As the missing pieces of both puzzles fall slowly into place, the Chief Inspector and his last few loyal friends and colleagues need a safe, untraceable refuge. But is even Three Pines remote enough to hold off pursuit while Gamache secures the evidence he needs? Or will the peaceful village and its inhabitants become collateral damage in the final showdown when vengeful enemies close in on Gamache?

Elegant, evocative and pyschologically compelling, Louise Penny is a worthy succesor to mystery writers like Colin Dexter and P.D. James.

Check out Louise Penny's web site at http://www.louisepenny.com/

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny --- 373 pages

This is the eighth volume in Penny's acclaimed mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamiche and his second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec.

Each installment in the series features a musical motif; in this mystery, Gamache and Beauvoir are called to investigate the murder of a monk in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (Saint Gilbert Among the Wolves), hidden deep in the Canadian wilderness miles from the nearest settlement. Here two dozen cloistered monks live a simple life of work and prayer. They grow vegetables, raise chickens, make chocolate-covered blueberries to sell --- and they sing. The monks have recently been rediscovered by the outside world, after releasing an album of Gregorian chant. Their glorious voices, raised in these ancient religious songs, have had a powerful effect on people all over the world. The murdered monk was the choir director. His proposal to record another album, and send the monks out into the world as musical missionaries, created a painful schism in the once peaceful community and resulted in his murder. The only suspects are his brother monks.

Gamache is also concerned about Beauvoir's mental state, as Jean-Guy has only just recovered from an addiction to painkillers brought on by the trauma he suffered in a previous case, in which a number of officers under Gamache's command were injured or killed. Both he and Gamache have reason to suspect that the tragedy was engineered by corruption at the highest levels of the Sûreté. When one of the Superintendents they suspect is involved in the corruption suddenly descends upon the monastery and begins to interfere in the investigation, the Chief Inspector fears that his enemies are targeting Beauvoir in order to destroy Gamache before he can expose their crimes.